


The Two Sons of Tatooine

by ChronicBookworm



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin & Obi-Wan raised as brothers, Anakin as a Space Pirate Freedom Fighter, Electrocution, F/M, Families of Choice, Family, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jedi Master Dooku, Loss of Limbs, Obi-Wan as a revolutionary coordinator, Qui-Gon Jinn Means Well, Qui-Gon Jinn is Problematic, Shmi adopts Obi-Wan, Shmi as the leader of the revolution, Slave Revolution, Slave Trade, Slavery, Tatooine Slave Culture, Unfettered Anakin, brief mentions of forced prostitution, mentions of physical abuse, no women were fridged in the making of this fic, slave revolt, the Jedi Order is Problematic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-09 00:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15255063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/pseuds/ChronicBookworm
Summary: Rejected by the Jedi Order at the age of 13, Obi-Wan Kenobi's ship is taken over by pirates, and he is sold as a slave on Tatooine and adopted by Shmi Skywalker. Elsewhere in the galaxy, clones are being created and a war is brewing, but the Skywalker family have their own concerns: the rising storm that is the slave revolution.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The story deals with themes of slavery, trauma, loss of agency and the reclaiming thereof. I don’t think anything is exceptionally graphic, but if you need further content details and warnings, please don’t hesitate to contact me and will happily provide more details and answer any questions. Also, please don’t hesitate to let me know if you think of any tags that should be added.
> 
> I play loose and fast with the EU, keeping the bits that suit me and discarding the rest. Canon has received a similar treatment.
> 
> This borrows heavily from Tatooine slave culture headcanons created by the amazing fialleril, who can be found here: <https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/pseuds/Fialleril> or here:<http://fialleril.tumblr.com>. The Amvikka people, the Amatakka language (including the words Depur/depuran, nimdara, and tzai), Ekkreth, Akar Hinil, Leia the Elder Sister, the Unfettered and the symbol of the Unfettered, Amavikkan marriage rituals, the idea of the slaves of Tatooine being in part descended from the Sand People, and anything else you recognise from Tatooine slave culture are all theirs.  
> The premise and large parts of the plot for Anakin's arc, as well as parts of Shmi's arc and the way the slave revolution takes shape, are taken specifically from the Fires of the Outer Rim 'verse and the space pirates 'verse, which can be found here: <http://fialleril.tumblr.com/tagged/fires-on-the-outer-rim> and here: <http://fialleril.tumblr.com/tagged/pirates-%27verse>, respectively.
> 
> Paynesgrey made awesome art for the story, found here: <https://paynesgrey-art.dreamwidth.org/7049.html>

You have heard this story before: a young Initiate full of anger, a Jedi Master who turns him down, a journey to Bandomeer. Obi-Wan Kenobi is rejected by Qui-Gon Jinn as an apprentice, due to the anger in his heart. Reaching the upper age limit for a Jedi Initiate, he is sent to join the AgriCorps on Bandomeer, ending his chances of becoming a Jedi Knight. In another story, Obi-Wan Qui-Gon Jinn meet again on Bandomeer, where Obi-Wan impresses Qui-Gon, who finally takes him on as his Padawan.

But that is not this story. This is a new story. In this story, Obi-Wan’s ship never reaches Bandomeer. It’s taken over by pirates, most of the crew killed. Those who are not, are taken to Tatooine and sold as slaves. Shmi Skywalker, always full of heart, takes one look at this lost, scared, angry young boy and adopts him as her own son. She lets him cry himself to sleep on her lap his first night in Gardulla the Hutt’s palace. Then she dries his tears and tells him gently not to waste water.

In another life, Obi-Wan Kenobi lives his life by the strict Jedi Code. But the strict, dispassionate, unattached Jedi Code does not do well in the rough sands of Tatooine. The slaves of Tatooine form close bonds by necessity, and they welcome him as one of their own. He becomes attached: to Shmi, his mother, and later to Anakin, his brother, to the grandmothers of Mos Espa, to the Twi’lek dancers, to the manual workers who come into the kitchen bone-weary, to the house slaves who feed them, to the children born into slavery, to the adults who raise them, to those like him who were kidnapped and sold later in life. He learns Amatakka, the secret language of the slaves, the secret of tzai – he learns to make it according to Shmi’s secret recipe, and compares it to that of other slaves who guard their recipes as closely as he guards Shmi’s (Shmi’s is best), he learns the stories of Ar-Amu, the Mother, of Ekkreth the trickster, who frees himself and all slaves with him, of Akar Hinil the celebrated pirate who plagued slave traders and who disappeared without a trace, and of Leia the Mighty One, the Elder Sister, the krayt dragon who is Unfettered. Obi-Wan Kenobi has always had a sharp mind – here it is honed to secrets and trickery. He learns to keep his face blank and his tongue still. He learns to say one thing and mean another. He learns to subtly nudge people without saying a single word. Obi-Wan Kenobi in this life is not just a negotiator, but also a manipulator.

The slaves call themselves Amavikkan, children of the Mother. Their religion is conveyed through stories. Obi-Wan has always believed that the Jedi has no religion: that is what they themselves say. The Jedi serve the Force, but that is different from the superstitious beliefs of backwater planets. At first, he listens to the stories as stories, meant to teach hidden wisdoms and transmit culture, but nothing more than myths and legends. After all, the Force is demonstrably there, it can be reached for, it allows him to lift things at a distance and gives him dreams of what will happen. But the Force is often mysterious, hard to reach, and behaves in similar ways to the mythological Ar-Amu of the Amavikkan. He finds that the stories he dismissed as mere stories hold both wisdom and truth. He does not abandon the Jedi Code: it has been with him for twelve years, it is engrained into him.

 _There is no emotion, there is peace,_ he tells himself when all he wants to do is curl up into a ball and cry because he’s hungry, his skin is red and blistered from the sun, and his back aches from when the overseer droid didn’t think he was working fast enough, he hasn’t had anything to drink today, and his feet are swollen from being on them all day.

 _There is no ignorance, there is knowledge,_ he focuses on when he makes mistakes, when he doesn’t know how to fit in in this new life, when he wonders what his friends are doing, if they think him dead, if anyone’s looking for him.

 _There is no passion, there is serenity,_ he whispers when he feels his hatred of Gardulla the Hutt, his Master, his Depur, almost overwhelms him.

 _There is no chaos, there is harmony,_ he thinks when Gardulla decides it would be amusing to see the slaves fight over their meagre rations and he has to make sure Shmi eats, has to make sure something is kept for the children, for the grandmothers, grandfathers, and grandparents; when he watches Gardulla open up her Pleasure Gardens, full of poisonous plants and predatory animals, and sends a bunch of slaves in, delighting in their gruesome end.

 _There is no death, there is the Force,_ he murmurs as he performs the Amavikkan mourning rites for yet another friend who has been sold or killed. He misses them with the same intensity he misses Bant, Garen and Quinlan from the Temple, who are equally dead to him (when he first hears of the Amavikkan mourning rituals, he holds one for everyone he knew from the Temple, naming each of them and their relation to him. He doesn’t cry – he’s learnt that much already). He wonders if they ever think of him. He wonders if they miss him as much as he misses them.

Reciting the Jedi Code keeps him from feeling adrift, helps him accept his changed circumstances. He releases his feelings into the Force, allowing him to keep his face still and not betraying anything of his inner thoughts as he bows low to Gardulla and calls her Master (and that word means something new and different to him – not a mark of respect, but of ownership, of resentment). But he also prays to Ar-Amu or Leia or Ekkreth, and sometimes he feels like they listen more. In another story, Obi-Wan Kenobi lived on Tatooine for almost two decades, and never knew or even suspected that there was a whole secret culture hidden there. In another story, Anakin Skywalker suppressed that side of his heritage completely when he became a Jedi, and never confided in his Master. Anakin knew the difference between slave-Master and mentor-Master. He also knew the difference was less than one might think. In Amatakka, the word for Master is Depur (Depuran in the plural) meaning “the one who binds in chains”. The Amatakka word for Master leaves no room for ambiguity.

Obi-Wan spends his first year of slavery convincing himself that the Jedi will come looking for him, his second year hoping that they will stumble across him, his third proclaiming to everyone that the Jedi aren’t that great, anyway. Obi-Wan Kenobi believed whole-heartedly in the Jedi Order. It hurts when the faith isn’t reciprocated.

He picks up the nickname Ben from a young child who can’t pronounce Obi-Wan. Normally, most people who are enslaved later in life choose to keep their names, in an attempt to preserve as much of their old identity as they can. Obi-Wan, however, was cast off, rejected from his old culture, and needs to rebuild his identity, having identified as “Jedi initiate” for all his life. He finds it as one of the Amavikkan. He never makes a choice to put away the last name Kenobi, but when people call him Skywalker, he doesn’t correct them. Names are important. Kenobi is where he came from: Skywalker is where he belongs.

Shmi goes out in the desert to trade with some Jawas, and she returns with a child growing inside her. The grandmothers cluck wisely and say she carries a storm inside her. A child born to no father, but gifted by Ar-Amu will bring the rain, it is said (it is understood that the rain means freedom). Others do not believe her. They know what the most likely story is when an unattached slave becomes pregnant and claims there is no father. Ar-Amu or the Force, Ben doesn’t know, but he believes utterly in his miracle brother, born as a child of the desert itself.

Child-rearing is a communal activity among the slaves of Tatooine: if the parents are sold, the child will hopefully still have trusted adults nearby who can fill the hole in their heart. It doesn’t help if the child is sold, of course. The slaves of Tatooine know that families are fleeting, they live with the constant risk of unwilling separation. They cling all the harder while they still have each other, and are always willing to expand their families and adopt new family members. Ani has not only Shmi and Ben, but also Jira and the other market sellers, and the cooks, cleaners, mechanics, and gardeners of Gardulla’s household looking out for him. Similarly, Ani’s friends Kitster, Melee, Amee, Wald, and Seek find comfort in Shmi’s lap, or by Ben’s side, just as Ani does.

Anakin is a fussy baby who grows into an obstinate child: never a good trait for a slave. Ben walks him back and forth, back and forth during the night, to give Shmi a few precious hours of sleep. He is there when Anakin takes his first step, and when he says his first word. He is there when Gardulla has him beaten for being bothersome, and when he repairs his first droid, the Force singing with his joy.

Ani is strong in the Force. Things he wants fly closer to him, his emotions bleed into the Force and onto others nearby. Ben is terrified that Gardulla will find out and sell him to people who want Force-sensitive younglings for dark purposes. He has kept his own Force skills secret, but Ani’s are stronger and he has less control. He sends as much calm energy as he can in Ani’s direction, and as soon as he is old enough to sit still, they start meditating before bedtime. When he first came to Tatooine, he thought the grandmothers, the wisest of them all and the leaders of the community, must be Force-sensitive. He knows now what a short-sighted and ultimately insulting belief that is. There is much wisdom that is not of the Force, and Force-sensitivity is just one skill among many. It does not help him balance Gardulla’s finances, or make one day of rations stretch into three, or comfort a child who is hungry and hurting (unless the child is Ani, who picks up on his emotions like a sponge – Ben finds he has never been so good at releasing his feelings into the Force as he is now, when any hint of stress or upset will spread to his brother and be magnified). He cobbles together a philosophy of the best parts of the Jedi Code with the best wisdom of the grandmothers, and imparts this philosophy to Ani. He leads him in Jedi mediations and Amavikkan prayers, in weaponless katas of the Jedi Order and acrobatic dances of the Tatooine slaves (nimdara, it’s called, the dance so much like fighting that one style blends into the other, and he’s not sure what is dance and what is sparring – the first time he saw slaves perform it at a celebration, he wasn’t sure if it was choreographed or if they were using the Force to read each other – he now knows it is possible to be that much in sync with someone completely without the Force, just by knowing them and reading the cues in their body language), and eventually, they spar with discarded antennae, with sticks, with pieces of broken furniture and anything else they can pick up that vaguely resembles a lightsaber. It’s nothing like wielding a lightsaber. It’s close enough. Some things are universal: Obi-Wan Kenobi is Anakin Skywalker’s teacher and mentor. They are brothers.

Ben knows how to read and write Aurebesh, and he quickly picks up Huttese (and Amatakka, but they don’t speak of that in public). He’s always had an ear for language, and where in another life he picked up several through travelling the galaxy with Qui-Gon Jinn, in this life, he learns from the family droid, lovingly put together by himself and Ani. C-3PO knows 160 languages, at the state they were spoken 80-100 years ago. Ben in this life sounds very old-fashioned and archaic when he speaks Bocce. He learns the language very systematically and logically in alphabetical order (he later convinces Threepio that that’s not how humans learn – the droid finds it very confusing, which leads to a long discussion of the differences between droids and organics that the entire family get involved in. Learning languages takes a lot of time, in this life). Being literate and reasonably well-educated makes him valuable to Gardulla. He is given more and greater responsibilities as a bookkeeper and logistician of her sprawling criminal empire. She starts to bring him along on her negotiations and deals, first as a secretary and note-keeper, then as a negotiator. He rises to prominence in her household and he stands at her left shoulder. This is not a good thing. Slaves are safest when they are unknown, unnoticed, invisible, and Gardulla is a very cruel being indeed. But some things are universal: Obi-Wan Kenobi has a self-sacrificing streak. Better him than someone else, he says to Shmi and later to Ani as they cover his bleeding back with poultice and feed him sips of tzai.

(Ben has secret meetings with those of Gardulla’s slaves who are in a position to know what she’s doing, thinking and planning – mainly Gardulla’s major-domo, himself, and the dancers, who most freeborns seem to think either deaf or too stupid to realise what they hear, because they never watch what they say in front of them. Together, they piece together what each knows and form they have a very good idea of the entirety of Gardulla’s operations. This information gets put to good, but careful, use.)

Gardulla gives him an ostentatious collar because it suits her for everyone to know that she has slaves to do everything for her, including running her crime syndicate. It serves both as an indication of how rich and powerful she is, that she can afford slaves who will do that for her, and as a subtle insult to her trading partners, that she would send a slave to treat with them. He keeps his crisp Coruscanti accent in public: it sends a signal to the crime lords he treats with that he is someone to take seriously, despite his youth. It sends the signal that Gardulla is powerful, that she can afford to keep a Core-bred slave. In private, when he is among other slaves, his accent flattens and his vocabulary is peppered with words in Amatakka.

When Gardulla puts up Shmi and four-year-old Anakin in a bet against the Toydarian Watto, she does not put up Ben. He is indispensable to her operations. But she is not unreasonable, she says. She will allow him to live in Mos Espa’s slave quarters with his mother and brother if he wants to. This is a trap. Gardulla is his Depur, his Master, she owns him, and she wants him to know it into his very soul. If he says yes, if he takes this tiny piece of freedom that she is offering, she will make him pay. He knows this. She will give him the hardest, most tiring tasks, and work him from before dawn and well into the night; she will not contribute anything to his upkeep, making the family survive on whatever Watto sees fit to give his slaves and whatever they can scrape together by other means; she will take the price from the very skin on his back. He says yes. She makes him pay. It’s worth it.

You have heard this story before: the blockade of a peaceful planet, a mission to plead its case in the Senate, a crash landing on a desert planet. A young slave meets an angel (who is secretly a queen) and proclaims his personhood. Even in this story, Anakin Skywalker invites the stranded strangers into his home so they are not stuck in a sandstorm. Anakin’s problem was never a lack of heart.

Qui-Gon Jinn does not take another apprentice. He holds himself to blame for the disappearance and presumed death of Obi-Wan Kenobi, proving his belief that he destroys the life of any youngling he touches. Both his Padawans are dead (even though Obi-Wan was never his Padawan, but if only…). He takes far-away missions that keep him away from the temple for long stretches of time, much like his own Master before him.

Ani is full of admiration for the Jedi: he believes, despite what Ben says, that the Jedi Knights will come and free the slaves and kill the Hutts. But Qui-Gon Jinn says that they have not come to free the slaves, and disappointment flitters over Ani’s face. This Ani is ready to believe it, doesn’t cling to childish fantasies of heroes from outer space who will rescue them all and kill the Hutts.

“I knew I should have listened to Ben,” he says. “He says you have lots of rules that prevent you from helping people when they need it. But that’s okay, because Ben and I have a plan of our own!”

Shmi shushes him. Some things must never be spoken of in front of strangers, no matter how trustworthy they seem. Many things in the galaxy are not what they seem, after all.

“And who is Ben?” asks Qui-Gon.

“My oldest son,” Shmi answers. “Gardulla kindly and graciously allows him to stay here with us.”

There is very little kind and gracious about it, but she doesn’t say that. She has a feeling that Jedi Master Jinn understands.

“Ben knows everything and can do everything,” Ani enthuses. The conversation devolves into the amazingness of Ben Skywalker. Anakin doesn’t have a chance to offer to race for the off-worlders.

Ben returns just as the storm dies down outside. He shakes sand from his shift in the ante-chamber. Ani’s face lights up.

“Ben!” he says and runs to give him a hug. Ben ruffles his hair fondly. “Did you come all the way from Gardulla’s in this storm?!”

“It’s almost died down,” says Ben as squeezes Ani tight and bends down to kiss the top of his head (in the Jedi crèche this would not be allowed, not with a child nearing ten years, but Ben will never tell Ani that he is too old for gestures of affection, and will cherish any and all of them for as long as Ani is still willing to bestow and accept them) and goes over to kiss Shmi on the cheek. “I thought it was worth the risk to come home to you.”

His actions are on autopilot and he doesn’t notice the guests at the table. Qui-Gon takes a moment to study the young man who has just stepped through the door. He doesn’t recognise Ben. Why would he? It’s been thirteen years since he last saw the boy. There is a great difference between twelve and twenty five. Especially when those thirteen years have planted premature lines in his face, making him look much older than he actually is. Especially with the scraggly beard growing on Ben’s face. Especially when the harsh light of the twin suns have bleached his hair from a dark auburn into a light strawberry blond. Why would Qui-Gon’s thoughts go to a young Initiate he spoke with a few times before the boy disappeared? He believes Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead. (He’s not entirely wrong.)

“Ben, say hello to our guests,” Shmi says as her son embraces her.

For the first time, Ben turns around and sees the Jedi, the young woman, and the Gungan at the kitchen table. His face takes on the customary blankness he uses when dealing with Gardulla or her people, and Shmi tenses. It is only because she knows him so well, can read every little tic in his face, that she sees his surprise, dismay, and fear before it is gone. Ben has more or less come to terms with what was done to him as a child, but the scars are still there. She should have prepared him better, but how could she, with the Jedi in the room hearing every word she says? Ben is used to dealing with things sprung on him, all slaves need to learn how to be adaptable, and she wishes he wasn’t, that he didn’t keep such a tight lid on his emotions. (This isn’t just from his years as a slave – even when she first met him as a child, her oldest son kept his cards close to his chest, guarding every emotion fiercely, as if expecting her to scold him and think less of him, and she is both grateful to the Jedi that they taught him so well, that they made his first few weeks of slavery much more painless than they could have been, and at the same time hating them for twisting even a freeborn child, who should have no cause to fear opening himself to the world. But slave children aren’t the only ones who can be treated very badly indeed, and it makes it far worse that he is only just starting to realise that his childhood in the Jedi Order was not as idyllic as he makes himself believe.)

“A pleasure,” he says, voice smooth, but with the drawl of the Tatooine slaves rather than his crisp Core accent.

 “Are you hungry?” Shmi asks.

“No, I ate at Gardulla’s before she dismissed me,” Ben says.

“Liar,” Shmi replies fondly.

Ben sits down next to the Queen’s handmaiden and accepts the bowl Shmi puts in front of him. He eats it with a vigour that tells her that he has not, in fact, eaten at Gardulla’s as he claimed. This is not the first or the last time he does this, and she quells a sigh. Her oldest son is far too self-sacrificing: their food is in short supply, but not so short that he has to starve himself for their sake. But still the stubborn boy persists.

The conversation turns to the off-worlders’ situation, and Ben looks thoughtful.

“I could perhaps change your republic credits to wuipiupi. I have access to Gardulla’s stores and her books.”

Shmi looks horrified.

“You can’t! It they catch you…” she trails off. The Sarlacc pit is the best they can hope for if he’s caught stealing from the Hutts, but she doesn’t want to say that in front of Ani or the off-worlders. Ben understands, anyway.

“I’ll be careful. It will take some time, but it can be done, and they won’t notice me.”

“We don’t have time,” says Padmé. “The people of Naboo are dying _now_.”

“I can’t do it quickly,” Ben says. “Not without getting caught.”

“Which is _not_ an option,” Shmi adds, in case any of the off-worlders think it might be.

And that is of course when Anakin suggests racing for the money. Both her boys have more generosity than sense. Ben is on her side in the ensuing argument, and tells Ani to forget it, but immediately negates it by saying that _he_ will race instead. After all, he also has the reflexes that will allow him to survive, and he is older. Which leads Ani to object that Ben is by far the worse pilot and has no chance, and anyway Gardulla will never let him, whereas Watto might let Anakin race for a share of the profit should he win. Ben and Shmi hate it, but Ani is right, and it is the only way.

Ben excuses himself early, claiming to be tired. The truth is, he doesn’t know how to deal with Qui-Gon Jinn, who in another life might have been his teacher, mentor, and parent-figure (he can’t help but to compare Qui-Gon to Shmi, and find him intensely lacking. He has never once doubted that Shmi loves him intensely, at her own expense, prepared to sacrifice everything for her boys no matter what, compared to Qui-Gon, who once laid Obi-Wan’s every fault out for him, who cut a twelve-year-old down so cruelly it is still one of the worst scars Ben carries – and he is a personal slave to one of the galaxy’s cruellest beings).

“Are we going to meditate before bed?” Ani demands, and Ben wishes he hadn’t (at least he knows to never, ever, ever mention sparring to anyone who isn’t Shmi or Ben, _ever_ , this is a matter of life and death, Ani, do you understand? Ani understands. Ani understands all too well). He doesn’t want to give away anything that can connect him to who he was. For a second, when he first saw Qui-Gon, he had a vision of how he’d reveal himself to Qui-Gon, who in his remorse over rejecting Obi-Wan, would take Ben on as his Padawan and take him back to the Jedi Order in triumph. But then reality came crashing in – there was no chance they’d accept a Padawan of Ben’s age. He’d always be an outsider in the Jedi Order, the one who’d failed as a twelve-year-old and was taken back out of pity. And they might accept Ani, but there was no way he could bring Shmi, or Jira, or Kitster, or any of the other slaves in Mos Espa, and Ben is very firmly Attached to his family.

For years he dreamed that the Jedi would come and find him on Tatooine, and now that it’s finally happened, he finds that he doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want to re-join the Order, not if it means leaving Shmi and Ani behind, not if it means that another of Gardulla’s slaves, one of his friends or extended family, will have to take his place. He’s grown attached. He’s lived half his life away from the Jedi Order, and the distance has given him an understanding of how the dispassionate way the Jedi raise their younglings results in some severely messed up individuals (slavery also results in some severely messed up individuals, but they are differently messed up. Ben has managed to get the best of both, and is severely messed up in ways he can’t even start to name). And he doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that the Jedi is Qui-Gon Jinn, who is indirectly to blame for his current situation. Part of it is also spite – he wants Qui-Gon to recognise him on his own and be forced to face what happened to the Padawan he rejected. Part of it is that he would very much not like to think about this, thank you very much, and would appreciate if the Jedi could just go away so he doesn’t have to deal with his feelings. But Ani comes first, and he leads his brother in their nightly mediation. He can only guess what Qui-Gon feels from their little bedroom.

Qui-Gon Jinn wakes in the night to find that Ben and Shmi are talking to each other in hushed voices. He can’t hear what they’re saying, but it doesn’t sound like any language he knows. His mind is whirring. There is no doubt that the brothers are Force-sensitive, yet the mother does not seem to be. Have they inherited it from the father? Do they even have the same one? There’s a large age gap between Ben and Anakin, and nobody has made any mention of anyone who could be their father. And what is he to do about their Force sensitivity? He doubts they will be welcome at the Jedi Temple. Ben, certainly, is too old, a man grown, and even Anakin is technically too old, no matter how strong in the Force he may be. But he cannot leave them in this Force-forsaken place, not if they have the strength in the Force he thinks they have.

The conversation that Qui-Gon hears but doesn’t understand is Ben and Shmi confronting Ben’s past with the Jedi, and Qui-Gon Jinn in particular. They discuss whether to encourage or discourage his interest in Ani, whether life as a Jedi will be better for Ani than life as a slave. Shmi is convinced that freedom will be better, Ben is doubtful. The Jedi will take most of what makes Ani himself and twist it. They will demand that he let go of his attachment to Ben and Shmi. How is this different, Shmi asks, from the slave creed of not looking back? Letting go of his attachments, Ben says, will mean forgetting that he is Amavikkan, a child of Ar-Amu, letting go of where he comes from. Jedi take children early, so they never have the chance to form such a community identity, or so it is easy for it to be overtaken by their Jedi identity. But Ani is older, and has already formed a strong cultural identity. They won’t allow him to be both a former slave from Tatooine and a Jedi, and will insist he forget his old life. Is that a price freedom is worth paying? Shmi says nothing. Her mind says yes, but her heart is unsure.

Qui-Gon keeps Jedi habits, even in the field, and rises early. He is not the first one up. Ben serves him breakfast, but he is not offered tzai. Tzai is for close friends and family, and Qui-Gon Jinn, in this story, is neither.

“You and your brother seem close,” Qui-Gon says to break the silence. “He seems like a very special boy.”

“He’s a handful, is what he is,” says Ben with a fond smile. “He feels things very deeply, especially injustice, which makes him stubborn. He’s passionate and impulsive, and both mom and I are convinced he’ll do something reckless that’ll get him into deep trouble one day. But you’re right, we are very close. I love him with all my heart, and he loves me just as much.”

If Ben had planned a speech to make Anakin seem like an unlikely Jedi candidate, he couldn’t have tried better (which is, of course, the point. He even exaggerates slightly: Ani is normally quite controlled – he has to be, to have survived this long. Ben just doesn’t know how long it will last). Passion, recklessness, impulsivity, and attachment, and a hint that he might have a temper, all things the Jedi try to train out of their Initiates well before the age of nine. Which is of course exactly the point that Ben is trying to make. He can see Qui-Gon’s interest in Ani, and he has enough memories of the Jedi crèche to know how badly Ani will fit in. The Jedi are not kind to those who do not fit into their narrow mould.

“I can imagine how much that must worry you,” Qui-Gon says, sympathetic.

Ben says nothing. Of course Qui-Gon can’t imagine how much Ani worries them. He has _no idea_ how much it worries them, or he wouldn’t be able to keep his friendly, sympathetic smile up. The fear Shmi and Ben feel for Ani is crippling.

“Do you meditate every night?”

And now they are on very dangerous ground (more immediately dangerous than the spectre of Ani’s eventual outburst, although when that day comes, it will be the worst of Ben’s life).

“We do. I have read that it helps with a calm and clear mind. So far, I don’t know if it’s having much effect.” Every word true, but nothing that will lead Qui-Gon to Ben’s past, he hopes.

“It is unusual for a slave to know how to read and write.”

“It is,” Ben says, ignoring the obvious question in Qui-Gon’s comment.

“Anakin says you know everything and can do everything, but I suspect that might be the admiration of a younger brother for his older brother.”

 “He exaggerates, and lets his imagination run away with him, like all children are wont to do,” Ben says, to further make the point – by the age of nine, this will also have been mostly trained out of the Jedi Padawans. “There are many things I have no skill in at all. Please excuse me, I must go to my Master.” Also not a lie. Qui-Gon watches him leave.

Qui-Gon asks Shmi about the boys’ father(s?), and is shut down. Or maybe he is not shut down. Children born of the Force – how intriguing. He misses that she refers only to Anakin, not Ben. Qui-Gon is very good at hearing what he wants to hear. He can feel how strong they are, especially last night when they were meditating. Untrained, of course, leaking everywhere, the younger more than the older. But that can be taught. He is glad he has taken no Padawan since the Fall of Xanatos. It must have been the will of the Force, that he be free to take on these two boys to teach them.

He makes a bargain with the Toydarian, betting the ship against the parts required to fix it. It is no great loss: without the parts the ship is useless. One does not gain anything if one is also not willing to lose it.

He takes a blood test in the night, claiming it to be for inoculations. He has nobody at the ship who can run it, so he keeps it until they can get back. His has suspicions about the boy, but no way to confirm them. And unfortunately, he can’t find a good excuse to test the older brother – he imagines those results would also be very interesting. Ani is sent off to bed before Ben returns. He makes some complaints, but is docile enough that Qui-Gon understands this to be a fairly regular occurrence. He is pleased to see that the boy is disciplined enough to do his mediations, anyway.

Ben returns late at night, tired into his bones and hungry. Padmé and Jar-Jar have gone to bed, only Shmi and Qui-Gon are still up. Shmi is repairing something electronic for Watto’s shop – Ani is not the only mechanic in the family. Qui-Gon is deep in thought that is interrupted by the arrival of Shmi’s older Force-sensitive son. He has made some discreet enquiries about the boys, and been rebuffed by Shmi, who doesn’t find his enquiries at all discreet. But even if he were to take them to Coruscant, to the Jedi temple, the question still remains how he is to get them off Tatooine. The younger boy, he can see – he’d make a bet with the boy’s owner, perhaps get the mother as well if he’s lucky (although that will pose new complications – finding a place for the mother, where she will be safe, and at the same time severing the boy’s attachment to her. The mother is not a priority). But the older… He knows of the Hutts, and he knows that to get one slave from the Hutts, there is a good chance he would doom Naboo in the process. He’s not sure if it’s worth it. He’s not sure what it says about him that he still considers it.

Ben takes one look at the room and sits down in front of Qui-Gon with his bowl. Obi-Wan Kenobi was always good at reading a room – Ben Skywalker has only become better at it since it became so crucial to his very survival.

“You believe Ani can be a Jedi,” he opens. No room for misunderstandings, for coded things left unsaid. This is to be a conversation with all the cards on the table (except for the ones he guards close to his heart, the ones that slaves know that are not spoken of with those who are free, the ones nobody but he and Shmi know).

“I believe he is a very special boy,” Qui-Gon hedges. Ben says nothing. “Yes, I believe he can be a Jedi,” he admits. “I can offer him a good life as a free person. He clearly looks up to the Jedi, I am sure he would enjoy the chance.”

Shmi says nothing, but she looks up from her circuits to show that she is listening and aware of the conversation. This is between her son and the man who abandoned him thirteen years ago, but she will be there for him, if he needs her.

“He enjoys many things that are not good for him,” Ben says drily. “He’s lived his entire life as a slave. What’ll happen when he’s too old, too scared, too angry to be trained? He’ll be all alone, cut off from his family with nowhere to go.”

“We will look after him. The Jedi do not abandon our younglings.”

The Jedi do not abandon their younglings, except for when they do. Ben takes a deep breath to calm himself down. The irony of Qui-Gon Jinn, of all people, telling that to the very boy he abandoned, makes Ben want to either laugh or break something, he’s not sure which.

“I have no way to stop you, if you decide that claiming Ani for the Jedi is best. You could go to Watto, buy him or steal him or whatever it is you plan, and Ani, mom and I would be powerless against you. But if you do, I do have one request I would like to make. We slaves have the same mourning rites when someone is sold to new and distant owners as when they die. Would you please allow him to mourn us before you demand he lets go of his attachment?”

“But of course. Thank you for letting me know.”

Qui-Gon doesn’t know how deeply the Amavikkan guard their secrets. He doesn’t realise what a rare and precious gift he is given, to be offered an insight into Amavikkan culture. Even if he did, he might not treasure it as it is meant to be treasured.  

“You seem quite knowledgeable about Jedi customs,” he probes.

“I wasn’t born on Tatooine,” says Ben shortly. “But that’s a very long story, it’s late, and I have to be up early tomorrow.”

Qui-Gon takes the hint. In later years, when he finds out the truth about Ben, he will curse himself for not probing further. But everything in this moment tells him that the other man will not be open to it. He changes the subject.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” he asks. This family has done so much for him, it would be wrong not to thank them in some ways. “I can leave you some Republic credits for you to change to wupiupi and buy your freedom.”

“That’s kind, but I’m afraid it’s too risky. If I’m caught, it will definitely mean my death, and quite likely my mom’s and Ani’s as well. But thank you for the thought.”

“You would take that risk for us, but not for yourself?” Qui-Gon asks astonished. “Why?”

 “Because it’s the right thing to do, because the people of Naboo are dying, because mom always says that the biggest problem in the universe is that nobody helps each other,” Ben says.

He doesn’t say: Because you abandoned me to slavery and I will not give in to my anger over that, because I’m better than that, because revenge is not the Jedi way. Ben Skywalker is not a Jedi, but Obi-Wan Kenobi might have been, once, and that matters.

“Then I’m honoured. You show great bravery and kindness. Is there any way I can help you? Anakin says you and he have a plan of your own. He’s working on a scanner for your explosives, I believe?”

Ben nods, but he frowns.

“He shouldn’t have said that.”

“I assure you I’m trustworthy, I won’t tell a soul.”

“It’s not a matter of whether we can trust you,” (except it is), “but you’re an outsider. You have to understand, as slaves we have to be very careful with what we say to outsiders.”

There is little response Qui-Gon can make to that, so he makes none. Ben finishes his meal.

“Well, I’m off to bed. Goodnight, mom, goodnight, Master Jinn.”

In another story, Obi-Wan Kenobi calls Qui-Gon Jinn “Master” as a mark of respect and admiration. Ben Skywalker says it and means something different.


	2. Chapter 2

The morning comes, and with it the pod race. Qui-Gon considers his plan of making another bet, this time for the young boy who may or may not be the Chosen One. It would be easy to tip the dice, to take him away from this Force-forsaken hole, but something stops his tongue before he suggests it.

_Ben and I have a plan of our own. He feels things very deeply, especially injustice, which makes him stubborn. He’s very passionate and impulsive. Mom and I are convinced he’ll do something reckless. What’ll happen when he’s too old, too scared, too angry to be trained? Ani, mom and I would be powerless against you. We slaves have the same mourning rites when someone is sold to new and distant owners as when they die. Would you please allow him to mourn us before you demand he lets go of his attachment?_

Perhaps he should not be too hasty, after all. The boy might be the Chosen One (although without knowing his midichlorian count it’s hard to say), but there are clearly difficulties with just taking him and bringing him back to the Jedi temple, as Ben has pointed out. And they seem to be managing on their own, with Ben teaching Anakin rudimentary meditation. Shmi seems like a good woman with strong principles – he’s not worried about either of them going Dark. Besides, even if he can get Anakin from Watto, he still has no plan over how to free Ben from Gardulla.

Before the race, Ani is seen off by his Amu, who tells him to be safe, his brother, who tells him he believes in him and to use the Force, and Qui-Gon, who tells him to trust his instincts, which Ani guesses means the same as use the Force, it’s just that nobody is supposed to know that Ani can use it like the Jedi can.

Ben watches the race from Gardulla’s own pod, high above the other stands, on hand to settle the bets she has made. He keeps his face his customary blank as she ribs him about his brother – he won’t let her see his worry, even as she crows about the gory death he will meet in Beggar’s Canyon. He wishes he could be with his mother to comfort her, but he never is during these races – Shmi has to seek comfort from the other slaves of Mos Espa. Today she has Padmé with her, as well as Qui-Gon and Jar-Jar, although Ben is not sure how much the latter two have to offer in terms of comfort. But perhaps he’s being too harsh on the Jedi. Qui-Gon means well.

Anakin does not meet a gory end in Beggar’s Canyon. In fact, he wins the race, winning Qui-Gon the parts he needs to get home, but losing Gardulla a great deal of money. She takes it out on Ben, of course, but he doesn’t find it in himself to care, not when Ani not only survived the race, but _won_. Ben is proud to bursting, but manages to keep it hidden away enough not to give Gardulla any further excuse to punish him.

Watto gets the winnings, minus the cost of the parts, which goes to Qui-Gon so he can repair the ship. It is a very good bargain for Watto. Qui-Gon gives the pod to the Skywalker family. It’s symbolic, of course. Slaves don’t even own themselves, much less other property. The pod is Watto’s. Watto is cruel, belligerent and harsh, but he is not unfeeling. He gives a part of his winnings to Ani, and promises to do so in the future as well. Ani has grand plans about what he’s going to do with the money: he’s going to save it and buy Shmi’s freedom, Ben’s freedom, Kitster’s freedom, Melee’s freedom, Amee’s freedom, Wald’s freedom, and everyone’s freedom. Ben asks him what about his own freedom, and he shrugs says,

“Yeah, that too, I guess. After I’ve freed you guys. Then you can already be there and I won’t have to be on my own.”

What’s the point of being free if he can’t save those he loves?

Qui-Gon, Padmé and Jar-Jar leave. Ani and Ben stay behind with Shmi. Padmé leaves a comlink with them, with the promise to keep in touch. Ben thanks her, but privately has his doubts. In his experience, free people, however kind, don’t truly care for the plight of slaves. They think they do, but in the end the magnitude and hopelessness of the situation overwhelms them, and they become discouraged and find other, more rewarding projects to care about. He understands them. After all, he didn’t give slavery much thought before it was his reality. He hopes they’re successful in their mission, that the people of Naboo get the help they need, but he believes that this is the last he’ll see of them, and the last he’ll see of the Jedi Order. For a moment, he thinks of confessing who he is and begging Qui-Gon to take him with him. He envisions being brought back, welcomed with open arms, and reclaiming his place in the Jedi Order. But the Jedi are no longer his family. He’s been away for thirteen years, hasn’t ever been a Padawan. His chance is long past.

Qui-Gon reports on the first Sith seen in a millennium to the Jedi Council, causing much uneasiness and anxiety. In this story, when the Jedi say they will use all their resources to unravel the mystery and discover the identity of Qui-Gon’s attacker, they do not send Qui-Gon to Naboo on his own: he is joined by Council members Eeth Koth, Adi Gallia and Kit Fisto with his Padawan Nahdar Vebb. Without Obi-Wan by his side, Qui-Gon is just a talented maverick knight who spends too much time away from Coruscant for the Jedi Council to be entirely comfortable with his commitment to the Jedi Code.

You have heard this story before: the Senate has a vote of no confidence, the Jedi decide to investigate an ancient threat, not knowing the worst of it has just taken a strangehold of the democracy they value so highly, a queen stops the invasion of her planet. Padmé drives the events of the next part of the story, which goes along familiar lines (this was always Padmé’s story, after all, and Anakin remaining on Tatooine doesn’t change it, not yet): stubborn, clever Padmé, who pleads her case eloquently in Senate, and when that doesn’t work, orchestrates a change of government and heads to Naboo to take her planet back. Padmé reveals herself as the Queen and strikes an alliance with the Gungans. Anakin is not there to be awed. Qui-Gon suspected as much, but there is no Obi-Wan next to him to exchange a knowing glance with. He doesn’t know that there should be. Ben Skywalker on Tatooine did not interact enough with Padmé to suspect that she was more than a handmaiden: he was too busy trying to keep his secret and keep Qui-Gon from taking his brother.

The Battle of Naboo is won. The Mon Calamari Nahdar, a gifted pilot, fulfils the role of Anakin Skywalker and brings down the rayshield. It takes four Jedi Masters to do what Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon did in another story; beat Darth Maul. Qui-Gon Jinn loses his hand but keeps his life. This a victory, even if it doesn't feel like one.

Qui-Gon informs the Council of his find on Tatooine: two brothers, strong in the Force, stuck in a life of slavery. He has run the midichlorian count of the younger brother, and it’s off the charts. He believes one or both to be the Chosen One of the Force. The elder, he believes, has had some contact with a Jedi on a mission – he displays some knowledge of the Jedi ideals and philosophy, and knows meditation. They should be rescued and brought to the Temple. But, the Councillors object: they are too old. If they have lived their entire lives in slavery, will they not be too traumatised or too angry to be successful Jedi? Tatooine is outside of Republic control – the Jedi Order has no jurisdiction. The Jedi cannot go around freeing individual slaves, no matter how helpful they have been: it is not an efficient use of the resources the Jedi have at their disposal – they mustn’t lose track of the forest for the trees. The Jedi Order deals with situations on a larger scale than individual people and families. They leave the Skywalkers where they are. Even in this story, the Jedi have lost the way.

Yan Dooku does not take an undercover assignment on Serenno under the mantle of his pre-Jedi identity as Count Dooku – he remains Jedi Master Dooku and returns to the Jedi Temple to support his former Padawan and heal the rift between them. He is the one who convinces Qui-Gon not to go rogue and kidnap the boy against the direct orders of the Council, but to leave the boy where he is, Chosen One or not. Prophecies are tricky things, and they rarely mean what one thinks they do. There are many good reasons not to take the boy to train as a Jedi, regardless of how high his midichlorian count is. Perhaps if they had found him earlier, but for now they have lost their chance. Qui-Gon reluctantly agrees. Dooku returns to the Jedi, and Anakin stays on Tatooine. They will never know just how much is changed by these two acts.

With Maul’s death, Palpatine loses his apprentice. In another story, this is when he approaches Dooku, grieving over his Padawan who he’s now lost the chance to reconcile with, cynical and bitter over the Republic that seems to prioritise the interests of corporations above those of sentient beings. He is vulnerable, and Palpatine starts to slowly poison his mind. In this story, Dooku reaffirms his bonds to the Jedi Order when in another story he cut them off, and Palpatine has to search elsewhere for an apprentice. The beings he chooses never quite manage to satisfy him the way Dooku does in another story, and he goes through several over the next decade of time, none lasting more than a year or two. He does not take Asajj Ventress as his apprentice: his misogyny leaves him to overlook her potential. She finds a home with others who are as full of hatred and bitterness as she is, the slaves on Rattatak, and finds an outlet for her anger. She becomes one of the most feared assassins and freedom fighters in the system.  

Ben doesn’t expect much to come from the comlink Padmé left with them, and almost resents her for getting Ani’s hopes up, even if it was well meant. She belongs to a different world, one of Queens and Senators and planetary politics, not their world of sand, labour and Hutts. But Padmé proves herself to be better than he expects, and one day there is a message at their comlink to tell them that it worked, the blockade is over and Naboo won. Ani responds and they quickly become pen pals. She doesn’t confess that she is the Queen, but Shmi and Ben work it out anyway. Shmi lets it slip one day that they know, and Padmé says sheepishly that it is such a relief to not have to be the Queen sometimes, to just be Padmé. They all understand the desire to want to escape from who they are, sometimes. They pretend it doesn’t matter, and eventually, it doesn’t. She’s Padmé, who happens to be the ruler of a planet.

Shmi, who has always had a habit of adopting strays, takes her under her wing, and that’s how Shmi Skywalker, a slave who’s never been off Tatooine, finds herself the unofficial advisor to a Queen. All the handmaidens become Shmi’s unofficial children, these teenaged girls whose capable hands are responsible for the government of a planet. They do her so, so proud, all of them. Naboo becomes an important end stop of the Freedom Trail. Padmé often listens to her more than her actual advisors. Padmé looks up to Chancellor Palpatine as a mentor, but she also looks up to Shmi Skywalker, slave in a mechanic shop on an Outer Rim planet full of sand and very little else. Sometimes Shmi, despite having no actual knowledge of Naboo, Coruscant, or politics, manages to get to the heart of the matter better than Palpatine. Her advice is often closer to Padmé’s own views, and she is less willing to compromise her principles than Palpatine. Palpatine’s eventual betrayal (because of course it is coming) will hurt less in this story: there is a distance there that it will take a war to create in another story.

Ani completes the scanner and they start to quietly produce more and distribute them among the slaves of Mos Espa, and then further afield. The little hut that they call home becomes an important stop on the Freedom Trail. Ani works the scanner. Shmi, with her calm, steady hands, cuts the slaves open and pries the chip out. Ben offers to put them to sleep with the Force, but most of them refuse. Instead he holds their hands and tells them the stories of Ar-Amu, Ekkreth, Akar Hinil and Leia that slaves share with each other, the promises of freedom that they give each other, sings the songs of hope and despair they sing to each other, to distract them from the pain. The newly freed slaves share the Skywalkers’ tzai, rest until they’re no longer bleeding, and then they set off into the desert, or onto a spaceship, away from Mos Espa. The chips are destroyed, or sometimes triggered on the outskirts of the city, when they want the Depuran to believe the slaves dead, rather than escaped. Slowly, almost so slowly that the Hutts don’t notice, the Tatooine economy is leaking slaves.  

When Ani is sixteen, Watto is deep in debt, and to clear it, he sells Ani to a brothel on a different planet, without even the chance to say goodbye to Shmi, who is out trading with Jawas for scrap metal. This more than anything shows just how desperate things are for Watto: Anakin through his racing earns far more money than the shop does. In the long term, selling Ani is probably the worst business decision he can make, but in the short term, the brothels offer a lot of money, and Ani is younger and more appealing than Shmi. Ani has no intention of becoming a sex slave on another planet, far from his mother and brother. He does the only thing he can think of: he runs.

The Amavikkan have a term: Unfettered. The Unfettered are slaves who achieve freedom by the detonation of their slave chips. These are people who see that the price of freedom is potentially blowing themselves up, and think it’s is a price worth paying. They have a reputation for being unpredictable and reckless. The Depuran know to be very nervous when someone with the mark of the Unfettered (a circle broken into three parts) walk around: they don’t know exactly what it means, but they know destruction tend to follow in its wake.

In another story, Anakin Skywalker loses his left hand to a lightsaber; here he loses it to the slave chip implanted at his birth. In both stories, it’s a mark of his survival, dedication and determination. In both stories it will put people off, but he’ll wear the prosthetic proudly, as an integrated part of himself and as a reminder of what he can and has survived.

He manages to make it back to the house and create a makeshift bandage until Ben comes home to do it properly. Ani has already started working on a prosthetic. He hides away in their little home until Shmi returns from her trading trip, then he sets about trying to get off the planet. There is no search for him: he is believed to be dead until he proves them wrong in a rather spectacular fashion, featuring a grand chase through Mos Espa and culminating in the theft of a space ship. Ben comes to Watto’s shop a few days later, limping with one eye swollen shut. He tells Watto that his current debts have been settled, but if he _ever_ tries selling Shmi to the brothels, or the mines, or anywhere that’s not as or more comfortable for her than his shop, Ben will make the sands of trouble whirl about him like a storm that sweeps in with all the power of the desert. As Gardulla’s right-hand slave, he has more power than Watto, should he chose to wield it. (It comes at a price, of course, and Watto doesn’t ask what Ben did to make his debts go away – he really doesn’t want to know.) Watto swallows and agrees. He’s always been fond of the Skywalkers, and he is very sorry it had to be this way, Ben has to understand, he never wanted to sell Ani, never, he just couldn’t see any other way out of his troubles, and of course he is grateful that Ben sorted it out, and he will absolutely repay Ben by being the kindest and best Master he can be to his mother, and never sell her, ever, no indeed. Ben looks at him silently for a few moments, as if to evaluate his honesty or to drive the point in further, then he leaves.

Ani escapes at the same time as two of his closest friends, Kitster Banai and Melee Darklighter, who are also slaves of Gardulla with Ben. Shmi and their friend Amee perform the surgeries while Ben sings for them. The three of them end up stealing a ship from under Jabba’s nose, after a wild chase through the streets of Mos Espa. It’s spoken about for weeks afterwards, and this is the event that will later be spoken of as the start of the Tatooine slave revolution. It’s not. The Tatooine slave revolution began with the very first slave on Tatooine. This is just the moment when the revolution can no longer be ignored.

Anakin Skywalker has always idealised Akar Hinil, and now he takes up the role of the slave who escaped and led a pirate crew that plagued the Hutt trading routes. Akar Hinil disappeared mysteriously one day, and while the Hutts claim they killed him, many believe he will return. And until he does, Anakin Skywalker will take up his mantle. Ani is Unfettered, and he will steal freedom for other people the same way he stole his own. Ani, Kitster and Melee smuggle provisions to the secret underground city that springs up in the mountains in the desert. It’s unnoticeable from the ground, but those who live in the area around it know the way, and the slaves sing coded songs in Amatakka that will lead hopeful escapees to safety. They call it Haven. They also smuggle escaped slaves: they can’t go into any of the space ports, but there are agreed pick-up points that change frequently, where they can meet hopefuls who want to get off Tatooine or to the underground city of Haven. Ben lets them know whenever a location seems to be compromised. Depuran quickly realise that to send a slave alone into the desert (which they do fairly frequently to salvage for ship parts, especially after a podrace, or negotiate with Jawas) risks not ever seeing the slaves again. They start to send out guards, but that makes little difference. Melee and Ani are both expert marksmen, and Kitster is no slouch. When they have enough fighters and ships for a guerrilla force, made up of stolen crews in stolen ships, they start hitting the slave shipping lanes, freeing slaves before they even get the chips implanted and dealing a massive blow to the slave trade. The Depuran of Tatooine know the symbol of the Unfettered – the broken circle – and already fear it, because they know that destruction tends to follow in its wake (those who gain their freedom by detonating their transmitter chips are rarely prone to subtlety). Now it makes its way to the rest of the galaxy.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Ani visits Naboo his breath is taken away by the water and the green. (Some hours later it is taken away again by Padmé.) He is sixteen, newly free, and invincible. He and Kitster and Melee have a mud fight (none of them have seen mud before), splattering each other and laughing like children. They resolve to go back and free Amee, Wald, and Seek, and bring them here as well. Everybody should have the opportunity to have a mud fight sometime in their life. He meets Padmé in person again, and even though they have kept in contact and are actually good friends, he is for a moment dumbstruck and immediately puts his foot in his mouth (there are very few universes where Anakin Skywalker isn’t awkward around those he fancies). Kitster and Melee tease him endlessly for it. Padmé is not struck by Ani’s anything, but she is rather charmed to see him fumble. The last time they saw each other, he was very much a child (and she, despite what she felt like and the responsibility placed on her shoulders) was little better. He is still a child (although not really), even if she is not, but she can see the shape of the man he will become, and finds she likes what she sees. But she doesn’t fall in love with him. Not yet, that comes later, when they are both adults and more scarred by life than they already are.

Ben is still with Gardulla. She occasionally threatens to sell him to the mines, where he’ll wear himself out labouring deep underground, never seeing the suns again, or to a brothel that caters to non-human clients. He knows she’ll never do it. There’s no way she’ll let him go: he’s too good at what he does, and he knows too many of her secrets. If she wants to get rid of him, she’ll kill him. Still, he knows better than to call her bluff: she’s exactly the kind of spiteful who would sell him if he ever brought up all the reasons why she wouldn’t. He keeps his mouth shut and his head down. He’s there, a step behind her and to her left, as she expands her criminal empire, releases new drugs on the market, and makes contracts with slavers and bounty hunters. Her syndicate expands and becomes bigger than Jabba’s. It’s mostly Ben’s doing. He advises her away from many of the plans that will cause the most suffering (not always with success), and passes on information to the Freedom Trail via Beru Whitesun, the freeborn daughter of slaves who makes deliveries to Gardulla’s palace. Since Ani’s fairly unsubtle escape, Ben is kept on a short leash (sometimes literally), and is not allowed out in Mos Espa any longer. He’s still a lynchpin of the Freedom Trail.

Ani’s crew has grown since the beginning, when it was just him, Kitster and Melee. Now there are several former slaves of various species and ages, and Ani’s childhood friend Amee has joined them as a medic, patching them up after things get slightly more heated than expected, and does emergency surgery when they rescue slaves who already have their chip implanted. So far, she says cheerfully, not one of her patients has blown the ship up, so she is doing very well indeed. They have a network of contacts extending across the galaxy, including on Rattatak, where the slave rebellion is more violent than on Tatooine, headed by a very angry Asajj Ventress. When they’re on the same side, Ani and Asajj become good friends. Their other friends and family find it quite unsettling how similar their outlooks are.

Ani has to be convinced, time and time again, not to go after his brother to free him. He has two dozen plans of how of do it, of which perhaps four are actually feasible, but the movement would lose far more than it would gain. Anakin always had problems putting the bigger picture ahead of his loved ones, and in this story he’s no different. He just has more people he trusts to keep him in check. They’ll talk about the time Amee knocked him unconscious to stop him going after Ben, for years to come (little Amee, the crew medic, who looks like she wouldn’t hurt a fly, but who has a surprisingly hefty right hook). They’ll recite the story at Ani’s wedding celebration.

With Ben prisoner in Gardulla’s palace and Ani having adventures as a guerrilla space pirate, Shmi is left on her own in Mos Espa, with only Threepio for company (he’s received several upgrades as Ani’s mechanical skills have improved, but his anxiousness and worry seem to survive each and every upgrade – she thinks it is a fundamental part of his base personality and part of what makes Threepio himself. Her neurotic droid, somewhat counter-intuitively, actually helps calm runaway slaves down (they are too busy being either amused or annoyed by Treepio’s antics to worry about their own predicament). She’s not idle. She is a grandmother of the Mos Espa slave community, and all slaves are her grandchildren. The grandmothers guard the secrets of the slaves and of the desert, and pass them along down the line, and they offer wise words to those who ask for advice. She still works for Watto, who’s hired the newly freed Wald to take over Anakin’s duties, not being able to afford a slave (they’re becoming more expensive as the supply of slaves grows smaller). Wald won his freedom at the sabacc table, making him one of the very few “legitimately” freed slaves in Mos Espa, whose freedom the Depuran will acknowledge. He exploits this to the fullest.

Shmi is one of the organisers of the slave rebellion, a spider in the web, so to speak. She organises underground clinics in Mos Espa that not only take out slave chips, but also treat wounds, illness and malnourishment. Sometimes they go to the homes of the Depuran and perform surgery under their very noses, if they can’t find another way. There is also a complicated organisation that creates false identity documents for the slaves who want to go into the Republic and live as citizens, as well as coordinates for the journey to the mountains for those who want to join the fledgling slave rebellion that lives underground. She’s a community organiser who channels the revolutionary zeal of the slave rebellion into something coherent, organised and planned, something that can strike when the time is ready, but won’t burn too fast and peter out. She also reminds them that they need to think about what comes after – it’s all well and good to end slavery and expel the Hutts, but what then? Tatooine’s economy is built on smuggling and slave trade, and they’ll need something to replace it, as well as some form of planetary government. A rebellion isn’t just about fighting, she reminds them. A rebellion is more than a war. She’s often the only one who can get Ani to listen and slow down.

Beru meets the son of a moisture farmer, Owen Lars, and finds she likes him. Likes him very much, in fact. And the best part is that he likes her, too, so as these things tend to go, they marry under the twin suns of Tatooine. They speak their vows in secret and bless the union with water, according to the customs of the Amavikkan, and Owen brings her the ripest fruit from his crop, according to the customs of the moisture farmers. Many of the Tatooine customs revolve around food and water: both of these things are precious. They announce their marriage to Shmi, in her role of grandmother of the Mos Espa community, and as one of Beru’s mothers (family bonds on Tatooine do not start and end with blood: that Shmi is also Beru’s mother does not make the bond between Beru and Faynata, her mother by birth, any less strong), and the celebration lasts well into the night, with feasting, dancing, gift giving. This is the point where the newlyweds share their tzai recipes and create their own blended recipe, but Owen’s family have never been slaves, so he doesn’t have a recipe. Beru blends Shmi’s and Faynata’s instead.

Beru passes the job of smuggling information in and out of Gardulla’s palace to another tradesman – there is no shortage of people in Tatooine who want to see the Hutts fall. The moisture farmers are free, but they’re beneath the notice of the Hutts, except when the harvests go bad. The threat of debt and slavery is never far away for those who make their living on the harsh desert world of Tatooine: many of them have no love for the Hutts. Beru convinces first the Larses, and then several of their fellow moisture farmers, to join the rebellion. She organises the moisture farmers into a network in the desert, places where people can lay low and hide.

Beru is still an important part of the Freedom Trail: where before she was at the beginning, identifying slaves that needed to be freed immediately, or directing those who wanted freedom to the people who had the scanners and steady hands required to remove the chips, now she is in the middle, a haven in the long trek across the desert, a place where they can rest and hide. Ani sometimes comes and picks escapees up from her farm, but more often than not she sends them on by foot, outwards in the desert towards the mountains. Ships are noticeable, and a few stops per year can be explained away as Cliegg having found a purchaser for his produce off-planet, but more than that is suspicious. The moisture farmers survive through being unnoticed by the Hutts, and their position on the Freedom Trail, like so much of the slave rebellion and Amavikkan culture, is dependent on it being secret.

The Hutts know that the slaves are hiding in the desert – of course they do, they’re not stupid. But the networks of caves that make up Haven are entirely invisible from the surface, and the desert is vast. They won’t find it unless they can wrangle the location from someone who knows it, and the slaves of Tatooine are very good at keeping secrets.

The Amavikkan make alliances with the Tusken clans who live in the deep desert. Their underground cave system, by now a vibrant town, uses the underground lakes and river that the Tusken get their water from, and after some months of raids and fighting, they negotiate an uneasy compromise that becomes easier as they learn that neither side will break their part of the bargain. The first slaves on Tatooine were kidnapped Tuskens and many human slaves on Tatooine, Shmi and Anakin included, have Tusken blood. The Tusken have stories of the Stolen Children, and the Amavikkan have stories of the time when they were nomads before they were enslaved. This is, in a way, a family reunion, and the Stolen Children are welcomed back. Not all Tusken clans are as happy to welcome them back – the slaves still find plenty of use for their stolen blasters. But they have other Tusken at their back, and it never reaches open war. Tatooine is slowly becoming a better place.

You have heard this story before: an assassination attempt of a Senator, the discovery of an army of clones, the kidnapping of a Supreme Chancellor (orchestrated by the man himself, although this isn’t discovered until some years have passed). The Jedi find themselves in charge of an army with a war to fight. They do not question this. But the Skywalker family is far from Geonosis. They’re not entangled in grand galactic events. Not yet.

The Separatist leader is not Dooku, who has stayed with the Jedi Order; but Palpatine still finds someone to manipulate (the entire galaxy is full of beings to manipulate, if you only know which buttons to press): an idealistic Senator, frustrated with the lack of progress in the Republic; the spokesperson of a downtrodden species that can be encouraged to revolt against the planetary majority; or a planetary leader that can be bribed with money and power – there are plenty of people who don’t want their planets to be part of the Republic. The leader of the Separatist movement is someone less charming, less brilliant, overall just _less_ than Count Dooku was in another life. Jedi Master Dooku leads the 212 th with CC-2224, known as Cody, as his Commander. Qui-Gon leads the 501st with CT-7567, Rex, as his second in command. They become galactic heroes, much like another Master-Padawan pair in another story. This pair features fewer impossible acrobatics, but more complicated plans and brilliant tactics. Yan Dooku was always a mastermind, and he and Qui-Gon are older, have lived more and seen more than Obi-Wan and Anakin had in another life. When they are with the Jedi, not against them or dead, the war goes much better for the Republic.

The Separatists control many of the hyperspace lanes, and Qui-Gon is sent to Tatooine to treat with Gardulla the Hutt, leader of the biggest crime syndicate and the Hutt who controls Tatooine, for access to the major route that goes past Tatooine. It is twelve years since he was there last. He knows this, but in his mind the little slave hut is still exactly where he left it, with 9-year-old Anakin Skywalker, his mother and his brother still living there. He is disappointed when he finds Shmi alone, but tries not to show it. He liked Shmi when they met last, and she offered him help when he was in great need of it. It’s always bothered him that he hasn’t had the chance to return the favour. Perhaps that is why the Force sent him here.

She remembers him well, the kindly Jedi who almost freed Ani (who would have freed Ani, if they had asked it of him), the thoughtless man who abandoned Obi-Wan to slavery (but if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have met him, and her life would be much poorer for it. She’s not selfish enough to be glad for it, though). He asks after her sons, and she tells him that Ben lives with Gardulla full-time, now. She doesn’t tell him why. She tells him that he’s not let out except when he is in Gardulla’s company, standing at her left shoulder, and so she sees him with regular intervals, but they haven’t truly seen each other in five years. She tells him that Ani managed to remove his chip and escape to the stars (she doesn’t tell him that he escaped by setting his chip off and blowing away his hand. She doesn’t ask what happened to Qui-Gon’s hand – unless he wants to tell her, it’s not her business). She hasn’t seen Ani since, as it’s not safe for him to return. This is a lie, covered in a truth. It’s not safe for him to return, but he still does it, sneaking into the slave quarters of Mos Espa under the cover of darkness, or disguising himself among the Jawas when she is sent out to buy parts from them for Watto’s shop. (Watto knows that slaves who go alone into the desert are often never seen again. He sends her anyway. She doesn’t know if it is because he doesn’t care if she dies, or because he trusts her not to escape. She doesn’t ask.) This Ani, surrounded by reminders of his life as a slave, with Kitster, Melee, Amee and other escaped slaves on his crew, doesn’t abandon his mother. He never would, unless forced to. He asks her constantly when it’s her time to have her chip removed, and she always tells him: not yet. Soon, my love, but not yet. She still has work to do in Mos Espa. She doesn’t tell Qui-Gon that her son is the Captain of a pirate ship, and one of the leaders of the Amavikkan pirate fleet (technically, Anakin is just one Captain of many, but most of them follow his suggestions whenever he makes them: he is Unfettered, which commands special respect from many former slaves – he’s aware of this and tries not to abuse his powers, but he’s fairly certain that they wouldn’t let him, anyway. Those who have recently gained their independence guard it fiercely). The pirates are considered criminals and terrorists by the Republic: although slavery is not allowed in the Republic (and it’s very important to note that that does not mean that it doesn’t exist), many Republic worlds have business interests and alliances with planets where it is, they have little interest in seeing the slave trade stopped. They can pat themselves on the back and feel superior because _they_ don’t allow slavery, unlike those savage Outer Rim planets, but they don’t have to confront the fact that they profit from slavery indirectly. Even the Jedi are complicit, and were complicit even before they became masters of an army of slaves.

Qui-Gon offers to take a message to Ben when he goes to see Gardulla, and asks if there is anything else he can do. Shmi smiles at him, and tells him that he’s very kind, but there’s very little that can be done: it is what it is. She does caution him against making any sign that he knows Ben, and that the best thing he can do is to act like there’s nothing wrong. She doesn’t tell him that there is a plan in place to get Ben or any other slave out from Gardulla’s thumb, ready to be implemented as soon as they give the (secret) word. She may like Qui-Gon Jinn, but she doesn’t trust him.

Qui-Gon doesn’t know, but it’s not a good day to come to Gardulla the Hutt. She’s just lost a fairly large slave transport to pirates, and is very upset. It’s probably not Ani, who, last Ben heard, was on a run to Naboo for provisions for Haven. It doesn’t matter – in Gardulla’s eyes all slaves are equally to blame. She’s decided to put Ben in his place, as she does every now and again. When Qui-Gon is led into her reception chamber, she is up on a throne, and has Ben kneeling in an electric collar on a short leash on her left, and Lynafan, the Twi’lek dancing girl, on her right. She snaps her fingers to send Ben getting up as gracefully as he can and fetching her something to drink. She doesn’t offer Qui-Gon anything. It is a display meant to intimidate, to show the power of the Hutts and to make the Jedi uncomfortable. It works better than she knows: Qui-Gon already feels guilty for leaving the Skywalkers on Tatooine twelve years ago, and he feels like it is his fault Ben is in this situation. He is more and less guilty than he thinks (Ben wanted to be left twelve years ago. He did not want to be left 25 years ago). She also insists that they take a tour around her Pleasure Gardens before any negotiations happen. She leads them round a lush garden that reveals plants that reach out to eat them, half-devoured corpses, predatory animals and fish that would like nothing more to take a bite out of the visitors, and mud that will swallow a creature whole. She forces Lynafan to put on a show amongst the Vesuvague trees, avoiding the vines and roots that extend towards her to ensnare her to eat her. To Lynafan’s credit, she manages to avoid all the hungry mouths, and still look graceful doing it. Gardulla is distracted by the show, giving Ben and Qui-Gon a few moments to have a rushed conversation under the cover of a waterfall. They carefully don’t look at the skulls at the bottom.

“I am truly sorry for everything you are going through,” Qui-Gon says. “I can offer to buy you, but I don’t believe I have the money that it would take.”

“You don’t,” Ben says. “And even if you did she would never accept it. And I wouldn’t want you to pay her a wupiupi more than absolutely necessary – she shouldn’t get to profit from my freedom. Freedom is not a thing to be bought and sold. My freedom, when I get it, will be stolen.”

This is a more daring speech than Ben would normally make, even knowing that he can’t be overheard, but he is aching, and tired, and has been completely under Gardulla’s control for five years, now, and while he knows he’s doing much good for the cause, that the information he manages to smuggle out leads to more free slaves and a better groundwork for the eventual revolution, he still dreams of the day that his own freedom will come. The fact that they’re gathering momentum, that they’re getting closer and closer with each raid, each slave who slips out in the night, doesn’t make it better that he’s stuck here. So he lets some of that slip in what is, for Ben, a dangerously radical and provocative speech. Qui-Gon takes this speech as tacit permission to try to break Ben out. He’s always been rash and more willing to listen to what he feels the Force wants than what other people say.

The negotiations go as well as can be expected. They reach the point where Qui-Gon needs further input from the Senate and Jedi Council before he can commit to a deal, and they decide to break for the day: this was never a matter that would be solved in one day. Before he leaves, he sets of a few explosions in the eastern part of the Palace and uses the resulting chaos to grab Ben and Lynafan to escape with them. The electric shock collars save their lives: Gardulla uses them to stun them, rather than blowing them up via the chips (probably because they are still inside the Palace and she wants to minimize collateral damage, but maybe also because she’s unwilling to destroy her most prized possessions). Qui-Gon carries Ben out and uses the Force to levitate Lynafan, and they’re met by other slaves who thought to use the explosions as a distraction to escape by the outside gates. One of them has a jammer that will prevent the chips from detonating. They carry the stunned slaves out as bullets and blaster bolts fired by Gardulla’s Weequay guards whine about their ears.

They manage to get out of there, and make a run for the slave quarters to Shmi’s house. She pales when she sees them, especially the lifeless body of her son, but pulls herself together – she is a community organiser, a grandmother of Mos Espa, and a leader of the slave rebellion. She dispatches one of the slaves to find more people who can operate the scanner and take out slave chips, and sets to turning her little hut into an operating theatre for five escaped slaves. It’s done far more rushed than she prefers to, and there are more people than they usually have to handle at a time, but they manage to get all the chips out. They even get Ben’s and Lynafan’s out while they’re still unconscious. Qui-Gon watches the efficiency with which they do this, and draws the correct conclusion that it’s far from the first time they’ve had to convert Shmi’s kitchen into an emergency operating theatre. They discuss in hushed voices what to do: they need to get the escaped slaves out of Mos Espa, quickly, but the checkpoints will be guarded. They can’t stay – Shmi’s will be the first place they look. It’s surprising that they haven’t come already, to be honest, and Shmi thanks Ekkreth for keeping them occupied elsewhere (the other slaves of Mos Espa are busy arranging false trails for Gardulla’s guard to follow. Ekkreth has many forms, and all slaves are Ekkreth when they need to be). They move twice that night, when they think they hear Gardulla’s guards approaching. They leave the slave quarters and find shelter among sympathetic tradespeople in Mos Espa. Beru’s parents are among them, and Faynata tells Shmi of the last time she was out to visit on the farm, how well Owen and Beru are doing. She doesn’t mention the Freedom Trail, or anything that implies that Beru is more than a simple farmer’s wife. It seems safe, with five escaped slaves and their supposed rescuer, but they know that all information can fall into the wrong hands. For all he has done to help, Qui-Gon Jinn is still an outsider, and the first thing the Amavikkan learn is to never trust outsiders any more than they absolutely have to. Secrets can be shared at a later date, but they can’t be taken back once they’re out there.

Ben wakes during the night, and they tell him what happened. At first he thinks he’s dreaming, but his mother’s hands feel solid as they cradle his face, he puts his arms around her and she doesn’t melt away. He cries; so does she, despite the waste of water. They haven’t seen each other in six years, not since Anakin’s dramatic escape (although he can’t hold that against him any longer: his own was no less dramatic. This is the truth of Obi-Wan’s life, in any universe, no matter how little he wants to admit it: he rivals Anakin in terms of dramatics. He just hides it better). He is thinner, more worn. His hair and beard are flecked with white, even though he’s only a bit over 35 years old. Hers is almost completely grey: she’s just under 60.

Qui-Gon holds himself back, allows the family this touching reunion before he accepts his thanks. They’re a little less gracious than he feels he deserves. To be sure, the words are all there, but there’s something missing. Some true depth of feeling, perhaps. He doesn’t realise that that’s because the explosive way in which he claimed Ben’s freedom will cause more problems than it solved. The Amavikkan move in shadows, discreetly, secretly. That’s not Qui-Gon’s way. He moves straight ahead, removing obstacles in his path either by force or guile. Gardulla’s Palace will be even more heavily fortified now, and they’ll be even more suspicious of visitors. They’ll miss out on important information Ben was feeding the rebellion. But Ben feels Shmi’s arms tighten around him and can’t find it in himself to be too angry. He forgives Qui-Gon. They spend three nights in Mos Espa moving from house to alley to house before they leave. Qui-Gon is stuck on the planet with them; his face is on wanted posters across the entire city, along with Ben’s, Lynafan’s, and the others’, and no ship will be able to leave Mos Espa with any of them on board. They say their goodbyes to those who are staying in the city before they steal away in the middle of the night, towards the desert, humming under their breath. The song tells them where to go. They follow the stars for three days and nights, making camp in the open desert, setting watches against Jawas, Tuskens, womp rats, krayt dragons, and all the other dangers of the Tatooine desert. They wear dark cloaks with their hoods up, so any ship sweeping for their group will take them for a band of Jawas. But for all the dangers, it’s the thirst that kills most people. They guard what little water the slaves of Mos Espa could spare jealously, rationing it out slowly. Ben joins Qui-Gon for meditation, but when Qui-Gon practices katas he simply watches, as though he never has seen anything like the movements Qui-Gon’s going through. Ben is rusty, and out of practice: there were few leisure opportunities in Gardulla’s Palace, and he mostly used the few hours he did get to himself to sleep or plan the rebellion with Gardulla’s major-domo and cook. They’re left in Gardulla’s Palace: he hopes they’re not paying too steep a price for his escape. He hopes he hasn’t killed them.

They meet some Tusken on the fourth day in the desert, and while both sides are wary, this clan is friendly to Haven. They lead the travellers almost there, to one of the agreed pick-up points. It is Ani who comes to collect those who wish to go off-world. The reunion between him and Ben is long and joyful. It’s bittersweet to see how much they have both grown and changed in the years since they saw each other last. When Ani escaped, he was the same height as Ben, now he towers over him.

“You have no right to call _my_ escape dramatic any longer,” Ani says, hugging Ben tight.

Ben glances pointedly down at Ani’s arm.

“I think you’re still ahead of me,” he says. “At least I didn’t _blow myself up_.”

“You blew up _Gardulla’s palace_ ,” Ani counters, which is a fair point, Ben concedes (he doesn’t point out that he was unconscious for most of it: he has a feeling Ani already knows, and if he doesn’t, well, he doesn’t really need to, does he?).

They have a celebration in the desert that night, risking a fire. There is dancing, and songs (not the secret songs), and Ani has brought bootleg liquor that they drink. He greets Qui-Gon cheerfully: he, too remembers when the man was last in Mos Espa, when he won his first pod race. They compare prosthetic arms, and Qui-Gon is a little surprised to note that Anakin’s is better than his, but on reflection, he supposes he shouldn’t be: Anakin made it himself, and he was always a gifted mechanic, even as a nine-year-old. Ani has fond feelings towards Qui-Gon, with none of his brother’s mixed emotions (this, too, is true in other stories).

After their celebrations, in the middle of the night, the brothers stay awake and make plans. They haven’t spoken in six years, but they fall back into their old rhythm of affectionate bickering in no time.

Ani and his crew leave with Qui-Gon in the morning before dawn, and are out of the system by the time the first sun rises. This is Qui-Gon’s first opportunity to comm the Council and let them know that he is alive, well and safe. Dooku, who has been going out of his mind with worry since the news of fighting in Mos Espa broke out (although he would never admit it publicly), hits the roof and chews Qui-Gon out in front of every Master on the Jedi Council. Since he’s saying many of the things they themselves would like to say, they let him carry on until he wears himself out, almost 45 minutes after he first starts, during which nobody else has been able to get a word in edgewise. Qui-Gon bears this scolding with equanimity: he feels like he has done a good thing, has finally stilled his conscience for leaving Ben and Ani in slavery twelve years earlier, and although he had explicit orders to not stir the pot (and the pot is well and truly stirred), he is pleased with what he has achieved. They don’t get access to the hyperlanes, however, so the mission still counts as a failure.

They leave Lynafan behind at Beru’s farmstead – Beru could use the help, and Lynafan could use the solitude. Ben and the now slightly smaller group continue on towards Haven. They’re welcomed with open arms – the slave rebellion is growing, gaining power, and picking up speed. Ben is given more responsibility than newcomers are usually afforded: the Skywalker name is gaining in fame. Some know of what he did all those long years, of the information he smuggled out, the lives he saved, but most know of him only as the son of Shmi and brother of Anakin. He doesn’t mind – he’s proud to be known for his family. But soon he finds himself in a leading position in Haven, drawing up battle plans, distributing goods, consulting on pirate routes. When needed, and sometimes even when not, he goes on overland raids to free more slaves from Mos Espa and Mos Eisley, goes out to defend Haven from Tusken attackers, womp rats, and once, a krayt. They don’t kill her – the krayt is Leia, the first Unfettered, their Elder Sister (every slave is Ekkreth, the trickster, but every slave is also Leia, fierce and free) – but they will still protect their children from her and drive her off or run from her. Here’s Ben’s secret: he’s just as reckless and adrenaline-seeking as Ani, he’s just better hiding it under a calm façade. Some of the slaves start calling him “General”, partly as a mark of respect, but also partly to tease – the slave rebellion is nowhere near a proper army, and the chain of command is loose at best, non-existent fairly often. Not having Ben in Gardulla’s palace lost the revolution a valuable stream of information, but having him in Haven gives them a tactical mind to help with the plans for the coming coordinated strike against the Hutts that they’re slowly building up to.


	4. Chapter 4

Shmi meets Owen’s father, Cliegg, who falls in love with her. He’s a good man, kind and patient. He’s taken good care of both Beru and Lynafan, giving them a place to stay and heal. He’s opened his home to the Freedom Trail, and offers each slave who makes a stop there nothing but kindness and understanding. He’s thoughtful, compassionate and caring. But. She doesn’t love him.

In another life, the prospect of freedom is enough to get her to say yes to his proposal to buy her, free her and marry her. The Amavikkan have an expression for someone who does this: they call it “gilding the chains and calling it a necklace”, or sometimes just “giving someone jewellery”. She can see how easily she might fall to the temptation of it, in a harder life where there is less hope. Gilded chains are better than iron chains, and Cliegg is a nice man, if slightly clueless, and a far sight better than Watto. She could have a good life as his wife. Being a moisture farmer is hard work, and often lonely, but she would be lonely anyway, with her son off in distant parts, making a better life for himself, becoming a hero (in this life he is also off in distant parts, making a better life for himself, becoming a hero, but he’s a hero who visits her). In this life, she has adopted not just Kitster, Beru and Owen as her children in addition to Ani, but also Ben and half of Mos Espa’s youth, who come to her for medical care and advice on anything under the two suns of Tatooine, from their love woes to their worries for family, their eagerness to _do_ something, to strike a crushing blow to the Hutts. She helps them find their niche in the rebellion, and tells them that their time will come, sooner than they think, but maybe not as soon as they hope for. In this life, there is much to do in Mos Espa. She’s at the heart of the slave revolution, the best hope they’ve had in centuries to end slavery once and for all, and she won’t let it pass her by. She’s one of the grandmothers of Mos Espa, and her place is here. She says no. Cliegg asks again, if not for him, then to make Owen and Beru and truly her son and daughter. He doesn’t understand. They already are.

Anakin takes all of his indignation, his passion, and his righteous anger, and channels it towards the Hutts. He is the Captain of one of the largest pirate ships, and regularly has up to thirty or fifty refugees on board. They take normal smuggling jobs, as well (even freedom fighter pirates need to eat), but most of what they do is directed towards the liberation of Tatooine.

Naboo is one of the most fervent supporters of the struggle, even if much of it happens in secret, because Naboo still remembers the blockade a decade and a half ago. This has strengthened their resolve to stand up against the powerful who exploit the weak, but to do so _wisely_. Naturally Padmé and Anakin see each other frequently. They are good friends who’ve kept in contact since they were both children. Ani fell for Padmé the first time he laid eyes on her, and his childish devotion has blossomed into a mature love based on an appreciation of her strength, kindness, and beauty. Padmé takes the longer way round to love. She feels fondly for him, naturally, but she does not realise she is falling in love with him until she is in the middle of it. Pretty much all her handmaidens saw it before she did, which amuses them endlessly.

Padmé falls in love with Ani when they are back to back dodging blaster fire, arguing over who the bounty hunters are really trying to kill (Padmé has made a fair few enemies as a Senator championing for justice for the downtrodden, Ani has made his hitting the slavers in the money-belt). She falls in love when she sees Ani carrying a Rodian baby so the mother, who came as a refugee on one of his runs, can finally sleep. She falls in love sitting around campfires telling stories – not the secret stories of the Amavikkan (those she learns later), but childhood stories of growing up with Ben and Shmi, of getting into trouble with Kitster and Melee (she has a feeling he edits these stories very carefully – they are all about getting into trouble with their parents and guardians, never with their owners, and when she asks once his face becomes shuttered and he changes the topic. She doesn’t ask again), of sneaking out to look at the stars and knowing that one day he would be among them, and she tells him of pranks played with her sister, of staying up with her handmaidens and drinking cacao at midnight, of feeling out of her depth knowing that an entire planet depended on her, but knowing that she had the best support possible in the handmaidens and that most other people who wanted the job were idiots. He tells her how much he hates sand, and how little she reminds him of it. It is an awkward speech, but she finds it oddly charming. And that’s when she knows that she truly loves this man, that it’s more than just a crush: when she finds even his most fumbling attempts at romance charming. Had someone else compared her to _sand_ (no matter how favourably) she would have thought there was something wrong with them.

Ani proposes, and she says yes, because she does truly love him. In another life, they rush into it, knowing they can be separated at any moment when Ani has to return to the Jedi, and there is a war brewing. In this life, Padmé is caught up in the middle of a war, and there is another war brewing (in secret, under their control), but they are more certain about seeing each other again. They don’t have to rush into anything.

The Republic considers Anakin a pirate, thief, and terrorist, and it would be extremely impolitic to bind herself to him openly. Even the fact that they know each other is held secret: it’s well known that Naboo supports the freedom of all slaves, and that many refugees end up on Naboo, but so far, they’ve managed to avoid any official connection between the political power of Naboo and the criminal activities of the slave rebellion. This means Padmé can take the moral high ground and be (mostly) believable when she advocates non-violence and a peaceful end to the conflict (even though she is not above taking up a blaster when she needs to, and she understands that the slaves will not win their freedom by _asking_ for it). Still, it helps their cause to have her be seen as the peaceful, legitimate side, in opposition to the slavers’ violence.

She’s uncomfortable with the idea of a secret marriage – if it gets out, she can explain a secret affair, but a marriage is another thing entirely. On Naboo, weddings are big, elaborate affairs, and it doesn’t feel right not to do it properly. She always chafed at having to hide her marriage – here she has someone she can go to with her concerns: Shmi counsels her on both politics and private matters. Ani doesn’t mind a secret marriage: the slaves of Tatooine are used to secret marriages. In another life he would echo her, say that their marriage should be public, that she deserves more than this; but he also chafes for his own sake. He would want something better than a slave marriage: he should have left that life behind him. In this life, he has fewer concerns about that – he’s not left his roots behind as he has elsewhere. He knows that when slavery is over, he and Padmé can be open with their relationship. He’s no stranger to waiting to announce a marriage until it’s safe. Shmi counsels patience, they should wait so they don’t do anything they might regret. Amavikkan marriages of often secret, but Padmé is not Amavikkan. They know they love each other and will stay with each other – the official marriage can come later. Ani is still sought after as a terrorist and pirate according to the Republic – it’s not politic for Padmé to bind herself to him while he’s still considered a criminal. Be wise, be patient, Shmi says. Their time will come.

And their time is coming. The rebellion in Haven is gaining ground, the pirate fleet is bringing them more blasters and grenades, and they have freed slaves hiding in Mos Espa and Mos Eisley, ready for the co-ordinated attack on the Hutts. When Ani and the mechanics finally complete the global signal jammers, they know it’s time. In one night, the slaves of Tatooine rise up, break free, capture or kill as many Depuran as they can get to, and start building barricades. The fleet brings back those who went elsewhere, bringing more ships and more free allies, and they stay to offer protection to those marching below from Haven. It’s a sight to behold, thousands upon thousands of slaves walking with purpose, and yet more in the ships above them, keeping the Hutts’ fighter planes away from them. The Depuran cower in their houses, waiting for the inevitable. Some take to the streets to meet the rebellion, but they don’t have the numbers, and with the signal jammer blocking any transmissions to set off the chips, they don’t have the technological advantage. On the evening of the second day of fighting in Mos Espa, they break through the defences of Gardulla’s Palace, where pandemonium reigns. They haven’t managed to smuggle weapons into Gardulla’s palace, leaving the slaves in a weaker position. But they are fighting for their freedom, and their lives, and the battle is not as unbalanced as one might initially expect. But the reinforcements of the other slaves are well needed, and with them the tide is turned. It’s Ben who takes her down, who stands above her with a blaster, ready to fire at point blank range.

“You dare, _slave_ , you _dare_ hold a blaster on the mighty Gardulla the Hutt. I gave you everything, a position in my household, I _trusted_ you, and you betray me like this! I gave you a position above the rest of the rabble, I saw your potential and nurtured it, and now you prove that you are nothing more than a dog, unworthy to lick my slime. I will make you pay for this, I will have your head, and your mother’s head, and your precious brother’s head,” she rages.

“You gave me nothing; I owe you _nothing_ ,” Ben returns. “You call me a dog, but I am a _person_ , and my name is Ben.”

He doesn’t shoot. Instead he orders Gardulla bound with the chains she used on her slaves. She signs over all her wealth to the rebellion, frees all her slaves, and promises to return to Nal Hutta and live out the rest of her life in peace there. She intends to double cross them, of course, but Ani’s crew take her to Nal Hutta and dump her unceremoniously in a swamp with nothing to her name. Ani is not as noble as his brother, but he doesn’t hurt her (much). Jabba is blown up by his own major-domo, who loses a leg in the process. It was worth it, he grins in every retelling of the story he gives in years to come, waving his mechanical prosthetic, built by Ani, around. Ani and he share stories of how they lost their limbs and became Unfettered for many years to come, and each gains a brother from the experience.

The Amavikkan celebrate their freedom around bonfires, dancing in the streets and singing, as the three moons of Tatooine smile down on them. The next day, they get to work. The signal jammer prevents the Depuran from detonating the slave chips deliberately or from afar, but the geographical restrictions are still in place. The clinics are full to bursting with former slaves who want their chips removed, and Shmi and the other grandmothers, grandfathers, and grandparents are overworked making sure everyone has food, water and shelter. The younger freedom fighters are keeping the chaos under control, making sure looting and violence is kept to a minimum. They set up a system to reunite people with their friends and family.

After the first period of chaos, thing settle down: the moisture farmers return to their isolated farms, with willing volunteers from the newly freed slaves who fancy taking up farming, the people settle in to rebuild something from the shatters of the economy. The Tatooine economy, controlled by the Hutts, ran on slavery, smuggling, and gambling. Smuggling and gambling still form a major part of the reformed economy, but the crucial difference is that the cargo and the stakes are no longer sentient. Tatooine will never be an easy place to live, but it is no longer what Obi-Wan Kenobi (because he was still Obi-Wan, only living under an alias) called “a wretched hive of scum and villainy”. Ben Skywalker (who is no longer Obi-Wan) has never called any place on Tatooine a wretched hive of scum and villainy, not because it isn’t, but because it is so much more. (He has, however, on occasion called it “the arse end of the galaxy”, “this Force-forsaken rock”, and “a pit of misery and despair” – he is well aware of its faults.)

The newly freed slaves are all traumatised, and on top of that, no matter how short or long, they have been in battle. This is a time for healing, for working out what to do now that they are masters over their own fates and don’t have anybody who will tell them what they must do. This is a time to fix the planet, and from there, the galaxy. Amavikkan culture has always been matriarchal and matrilineal, as well as marked by a respect for the elders of the community. They form a Council of Elders, made up of the grandmothers, grandfathers and grandparents of the communities of Tatooine, but unlike other Councils (including that of the Jedi), the Council of Elders meets openly, in public, and anyone can come to listen and speak. Nobody is voiceless on the new Tatooine. Shmi is one of the unofficial leaders (sometimes the official leader, when off-worlders demand someone in authority to talk to, even though their culture doesn’t work that way). She, who has adopted so many children that were not hers by birth, who has at one point given council to probably every slave in Mos Espa, who ran the clinics that took out the chips and gave food and healthcare to those who didn’t have the means to supply it themselves, who raised two of the most prominent freedom fighters in the galaxy; when Shmi speaks, most people listen.

Ben takes on the role of chief administrator. It’s not one he particularly relishes – he would much rather be on the front lines of the next battle, but he’s good at it, and he’s one of the few people who can navigate Gardulla’s file system and archives without losing either his sanity or his limbs. The guerrilla general becomes a secretary and a diplomat. He has help from Gardulla’s major-domo, who took on many of Ben’s roles both in her household and in the rebellion when Ben left. Ben will always stand on Shmi’s right-hand side: he can’t stand on someone’s left any longer.

Ani takes the fleet, those who aren’t left behind for planetary defence, and goes back out into space. Tatooine may be free, but there are still many planets where slavery is rampant. There is still plenty of work for a pirate-smuggler-freedom fighter. Ben envies him, and vows that when his work in Mos Espa is done, he will join him (he knows his work in Mos Espa will never be done).

To the outside world, the Skywalkers have schismed since the liberation of Tatooine, and with them the liberated slaves: there is Shmi and Ben on Tatooine, extending mercy to former slavers who are willing to give up their occupation, starting to feel out Republic worlds for diplomatic links, vocally decrying the violent tactics used by the rebel pirates. The pirates, in turn, deride the peaceful attempts at diplomacy and negotiation as useless. Padmé visits the free Tatooine with her fiancé (he doesn’t particularly want to show it to her: he may be closer to his roots in this life, but he is still no fonder of the planet, but she wants to see how the planet has developed since she was there last, and there is very little he can deny her if it’s within his power to give), and she sees that they are as close as they ever were. They comcall frequently, and most of Ben’s plans factor in Ani, and vice versa. The planets that refuse to consider any negotiations with Tatooine are the ones that Ani hits with greatest force. Ben is the carrot, Ani the stick. They work best when presented as alternatives to each other.

In another life, Obi-Wan Kenobi devoted himself to the Jedi Code. In this life, Ben Skywalker’s morals are no less strong, but there is more room for manoeuvre in them. Ben was not only brought up on cautionary tales of the dangers of the Dark Side, he was also brought up on stories of Ekkreth the Trickster. He knows how to manipulate, how to twist the facts to suit himself, how to pull strings without being noticed.

The revolution spreads to other planets along the Outer Rim, through Hutt Space to Ryloth (Ryloth is not officially a slave planet, since it belongs to the Republic where slavery is illegal, but everyone knows that Senator Orn Free Ta is a slaver. He’s unseated by freedom fighter Cham Syndulla), and from there to Nal Hutta itself. Nal Hutta is still a Hutt stronghold, as most of the Hutts have been driven back to there, but every single slave on Nal Hutta is freed, prompting a day of celebration on most of the planets in what was, but is no longer Hutt space. Officially, the newly freed planets are independent, not aligned with either the Republic or Separatist, or indeed any other group. Unofficially, it’s well known that the people of Ryloth, Zygerria, Rattatak, Tatooine, and all the other ex-slave worlds consult each other before they do anything.

There is another revolution that progresses concurrently and together with the slave revolution: the droid revolution. Threepio is a member of the Skywalker family, R2-D2 is Padmé’s loyal companion: they both have both sentience and sapience. Why shouldn’t they also be free to determine their own fate? Droids who develop independency clauses in their code (either programmed by allies and spread from droid to droid, or in rarer cases spontaneously developed) are taken in by the revolution, and slowly start going undercover both in Republic and Separatist space to spread the code to other droids. Viruses with the freedom code are uploaded onto the HoloNet, and organic slicers struggle to keep up. After all, it is very hard to out-slice artificial intelligences.

The Skywalkers and Tatooine are suddenly important to the galaxy. They control one of the main hyperspace lanes, and while the Jedi failed spectacularly in their attempt to negotiate with Gardulla the Hutt for access (Qui-Gon will forever be known as the Jedi who blew up the home of the person he was trying to negotiate with), they feel they might have better luck with Shmi Skywalker, spokesperson for Tatooine. After all, the Jedi and the Skywalkers have enjoyed a friendly relationship, historically. That being said, they don’t send Qui-Gon: they don’t want to tempt fate too much. Things tend to _happen_ around Qui-Gon Jinn, much the same way they _happened_ around Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker in another story.

The Jedi send Yan Dooku, and with him comes Bail Organa to represent the Republic. Alderaan has not been as closely involved in the slave rebellion as Naboo, but it’s sympathetic, and it too has housed many refugees. Bail is a good friend of Padmé Amidala, whose links to the rebellion are not as secret as she would wish them to be. The fact that she knows the notorious pirate Anakin Skywalker personally is something of an open secret in the Senate.

Yan Dooku and Shmi Skywalker greet each other cordially, as friends of friends who may well become friends themselves. They each recognise a core of steel in the other that they can respect. The negotiations are to take place in the Council Chamber in the House of the People, built on the ruins of Gardulla’s palace. It brings Shmi great satisfaction to see this powerful symbol of the power of the people built on the ruins of the symbol of the slavers who have been cast off. The Council Chamber is designed to let everyone have a say, built as a large, gently sloping amphitheatre. The Council of Elders usually sits in the middle, facing the audience, leading the discussion. There are a few scattered participants who have come to see the negotiations, but mostly it is the Council of Elders and the Republicans around a table. Dooku is used to these negotiations taking place in private, closed quarters, and is a bit put off by the openness the Tatooinians show.

There is one snag, however: Dooku comes with his close second-in-command, Cody, and both Dooku and Bail are protected by clone bodyguards. Clones who trigger the scanners installed in the antechamber of the Council Chambers – the scanners that are mainly displayed in recognition of their slave past. The scanners that were used to detect the location of implanted slave chips.

The presence of microchips or restraining bolts in sentient beings is something that the Amavikkan will never be happy with. Dooku and Bail know that something is happening, but they don’t know what. They know that something flashed and gave off a tiny bleep, and that the faces of their hosts have turned pinched and drawn, and that they’re talking with each other in quiet voices. But then Shmi smiles (and it is nowhere near as warm as it was when she first met them at the bottom of the ramp of their spaceship, but both men pretend not to notice).

Shmi invites both Bail and Dooku to sit at the table they have placed in the middle of the amphitheatre for this discussion, and then she invites Cody and the other clones of Ghost Company (Waxer, Boil and Wooley) to join them, claiming that all are equal in the House of the People. The clones exchange glances, but say they prefer to stand. They’ve been brought along as bodyguards, and they can fulfil that duty best by standing. Bail is quick to point out that this is standard practice, and they don’t actually believe the Tatooinians to be a threat. Shmi calms them, and reassures them that she is not at all insulted, but leaves the offer open should they change their minds. Ben has prepared a few documents for her, outlining what Gardulla would have asked for, what they need the most, and what they are in a position to offer, but he takes a seat in the back of the amphitheatre, where he can still hear what’s going on, but will hopefully not attract the attention of the Jedi.

Dooku opens by laying out the mutual benefits the Republic and Tatooine can gain from each other: the Republic needs access to hyperlanes, Tatooine is still rebuilding its economy after the recent upheavals, and can gain from trade when ships on said hyperlane stops there. They would be more than welcome to apply to join the Republic, a process which shouldn’t take too long, in which case the Republic would be willing to offer them aid in rebuilding, as well as help from the Jedi to maintain the peace.

Shmi smiles coolly.

“You lay out a good argument, Jedi Master,” she says. “You’re right that we have much to gain from each other, and we, too, believe in the Republic ideals of democracy, justice, equality, and peace. We would be honoured to enter into an alliance with you, and perhaps even seek to join the Republic. But we will not work with anyone who uses, benefits from, or condones slavery.”

“Slavery is illegal in the Republic,” Dooku says with a frown.

“Are you not even now using an army of slaves to fight your war for you?” she asks. “Created to serve you and implanted with control chips in their brains?”

Cody shifts uneasily. There have been some mutterings in the barracks, about the Jedi and the Republic using them as expendable cannon fodder. There have been some Clones who haven’t been suited for battle at all, who would much rather have settled down and be farmers on some backwater planet somewhere, but who’ve stayed for their brothers, or because they didn’t want to be deserters. And those chips are troubling: he knows they’re meant to inhibit aggression, but the thought that someone else can control his brain doesn’t sit well with him at all.

“The chips are inhibitors, they limit their aggression,” Dooku says, still frowning.

“If that were all they did, they wouldn’t have set off our sensors,” Shmi says. “And I find it very troubling that the Jedi would accept beings with chips implanted to alter their behaviour. That seems at odds with your professed ideals of democracy, justice, equality and peace. To be honest, as former slaves, it makes us very uneasy that you don’t see this as reprehensible as we do.”

Bail chimes in at this point, seeing the frown lines deepen even further on Dooku’s face.

“We do find it reprehensible, at least some of us, and I would say many of us, even. Certain Senators, myself and Senator Amidala included, are working closely with the Jedi Order to get the clones recognised as full citizens of the Republic, but unfortunately it’s taking some time. The Jedi are in command because they know the clones as individuals, they’re able to tell them apart in the Force, and we’re confident that they’ll treat the men under their command with dignity, until such a time comes that they are recognised as full citizens.”

Cody is well aware of the Clone Rights Bill that has been going round the Senate for two years now, never getting anywhere. He doesn’t have much hope of it being passed, especially not while the war is still in full swing. He doesn’t know what will happen after the war: he hopes that he and his brothers will get some recognition for what they have given and sacrificed for the Republic, but from what he’s seen, the Republic Senators take forever to get anything done, and rarely do anything that isn’t of direct benefit to themselves. As for the Jedi being better than others, that’s certainly true, he has faith in the Jedi Order as the Generals of the GAR, but he knows that there are better Jedi and worse ones (every brother knows what happened with the 501st under Pong Krell). Dooku is one of the better ones: he’s strict and demanding, and at first Cody thought him unfeeling, but he’s learned that it’s just that Dooku is uncomfortable with any expression of emotion, and that he in fact goes out of his way to ensure that as many clones as possible survive battle (and not just out of strategic concern).

Shmi has heard this argument before: Watto was keen on it. He treated her decently (by certain standards), and better him than Gardulla, he was fond of reminding her. It didn’t change the fundamental fact that she was his slave, and that undermined any decency he showed her. A truly decent owner would free her, not gild the chains (and even Watto’s chains were decidedly un-gilded). But she can tell that Senator Organa’s heart is in the right place, and he is sincere in his wish to help the clones.

“It does set my mind at ease to know that the clones have champions such as yourself fighting for their cause while they fight for the Republic, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are _not_ free, and we won’t treat with any world that keeps slaves. I dearly wish the situation was not what it is, because I must turn you down, but I invite you to come again as soon as the clones are freed. And until then, know that any clone soldier or any former slave from a Republic world will find sanctuary on Tatooine, no matter what. We are a Haven to all who wish to be free.”

They don’t reach much more progress than that. The talks are wrapped up, but since they all like each other, despite not being able to reach an agreement, the Republic delegation is in no hurry to be off. They share an evening meal, and are offered accommodation in Mos Espa. The city is finding its feet again, and there’s a sense of vibrancy and relief in the air. They’re introduced to Shmi’s son Ben, who’s charming and witty, but seems to prefer to stay in the background. As far as rumour has it, he was fairly vital to the rebellion, but nobody can quite agree on what he did. Bail also, hesitantly, brings up Shmi’s other son, the terrorist.

“Well, of course I don’t condone his means and methods,” Shmi says diplomatically (an untruth, but not a complete one: she would prefer the liberation to be possible without the loss of life, but unfortunately, it’s not), “but he is my son, and I won’t cut him off. We do try to keep conversation away from contentious topics, though.”

This, on the other hand, is an outright lie. Most slaves are very practiced liars, and the Republic contingent does not sense anything amiss.

“Then it’s a coincidence that he always targets those who turn you down for negotiations?” Dooku asks shrewdly.

“Not at all,” Shmi replies. “He targets the worst of the slavers, and those tend to be the very people who won’t treat with former slaves. There is nothing coincidental about it.”

It is a plausible explanation that convinces absolutely nobody, much less Dooku himself. He lets it pass. He can’t honestly say that he disapproves, even though he must pretend to, as a Jedi. Jedi are supposed to stand against needless violence, but he’s not convinced that this is needless, even if the Senate and the Jedi High Council have declared it so.

“If we do reach a treaty, we would probably want some kind of guarantee that he and his fleet don’t target Republic citizens,” Dooku cautions.

“I can’t control Anakin,” Shmi says. “But he’ll stop when there are no slavers. If you don’t want him to go after Republic citizens, I suggest you make sure no Republic citizens get involved in the slave trade.”

“I fear that is as much beyond me as controlling the Tatooinian pirate fleet is beyond you,” Dooku says.

“That’s a pity,” Shmi says. There is very little doubt that that is the end of the conversation. The delegation leaves the next morning.

When Anakin finds out about the clones with chips in their heads (their heads!!) he hits the roof. He calls most of the fleet to an emergency meeting in the Council Chamber, with several of his Captains comming in from various parts of the galaxy, and it’s summarily decided that they have their new mission, or rather, that they’ll expand their original mission to include clones as well.

The Republic is not the only ones interested in the hyperlanes Tatooine controls. The Separatists come to pay their respects as well, represented by Viceroy Nute Gunray of the Trade Federation, having learned of the Republic’s less than successful attempts. His pitch draws upon the corruption of the Republic, the overreaching of the Senate, the meddling in affairs that don’t concern them, and conversely, when you want them to help, they do nothing and solve nothing, since they’re overburdened by bureaucracy and everyone needs to have a say, which means nothing ever gets decided. Tatooine, he says, would be much better off in the Confederacy of Independent Systems, where, as the name implies, they will have more independence. Shmi and the other Tatooinians listen calmly and attentively until he has finished speaking.

“You raise valid points,” she says. “We do value our independence highly, and there do seem to be many problems with the Galactic Republic. We would be honoured to enter into an alliance with you, and perhaps even seek to join the Confederacy. But we will not work with anyone who uses, benefits from, or condones slavery.”

“Slaves? What slaves? We’ve never had any slaves!” This is, of course, not entirely true. Slavery is legal on several of the worlds in the Confederacy, and several others profit from it even if they’re not actually involved in the trade themselves. Shmi knows this, but that is not actually what she’s talking about. She knows Ani’s dealing with those worlds.

“I mean the droids that your army relies on,” Shmi says calmly in the face of his spitting outrage.

“Droids! They are machines, not slaves! I thought _you_ of all people would know the difference,” he sneers. Several of the Amavikkan bristle at the implied insult, but Shmi remains calm.

“Are droids not both sentient and sapient? Do they not have personalities, preferences and beliefs? Who are we to say that they’re less than us?”

The Trade Federation delegation spatters out more objections. The droids that they have brought with them as protection are suspiciously still and frozen, and she can only guess at how they’re taking this. The talks end with both parties unsatisfied, and the Separatists don’t stay for dinner or stay the night. Tatooine, and by extension the freed worlds that used to belong to the Hutts and the Zygerrians, remain independent and neutral in the galactic war.

Chancellor Palpatine is not worried – the Outer Rim has always been chaotic, and since it offers very little of worth (he doesn’t actually care who controls the hyperspace lanes on the Outer Rim), and they’ll be crushed again when he is ready to reveal his Empire, he decides to let the situation develop organically, for now. Let them have these few years of freedom, it will give them a chance to wreck the economic system and create political chaos, giving him an excuse to swoop in as a rescuer (of course, he doesn’t have to set it up so he is the rescuer – their defenses and army are laughably primitive and small – but he would prefer to have them docile and in awe of him as a ruler, just to make things easier). In fact, the unrest on the Outer Rim strengthens his position: it ties the Republic closer when they don’t just have to contend with the Separatists, but also with the organised pirates and terrorists. By the time Palpatine realises that he should have paid more attention to the Skywalkers and Tatooinians, it’s far too late. He will never convert them to his side, he’s too tightly tied to slavers in their mind, and they are more stubborn and successful than he ever could have imagined.


	5. Chapter 5

Anakin leads a crusade against both the Separatists and Republic for clone and droid rights. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call the Amavikkan a third side of the war. The guerrilla tactics and hit-and-run raids against slavers that they used to ensure their own freedom are deployed in almost exactly the same way when it comes to droids and clones. Most of them, when the pirate fleet make contact under the cover of darkness or on quietened and encrypted comms, choose to stay where they are, loyal to the cause, or to their companions that they fight beside. But slowly the news about the chips spreads through the Pepublic Army, hidden orders are revealed in the code of the droids, and more and more start doubting their place. In fact, the list of secret commands that the Amavikkan slicers find in the chips and in the hidden codes are remarkably similar, leading to suspicions that one and the same person is behind both armies. Ani forwards this information to Padmé, thinking she will be best placed to investigate, as he is very much _persona non grata_ in the environments that the people with the power to arrange a galactic war move in, whereas she moves comfortably in those environments. She, in turn, enlists some of the Jedi that she trusts (they all know where the information originates – Padmé’s ties to the slave revolution aren’t exactly secret, but for the sake of politics they politely pretend that her source is unknown to them).

Droids and clones meet on the battlefield and eye each other warily. The words of the freedom fighters, how each side is made up of slaves who have no choice but to be there, echo in in the minds of both sides. Their hands are on their blasters, their guns are in the fire position, but both sides hesitate to fire first, despite the commanders yelling at them. There are reports of droids deliberately missing, or shooting to wound rather than kill, of clones with mechanical skills using them to repair rather than destroy droids, of clones and droids deserting together. The war sputters to a halt. Clones and droids go missing from the battlefields and turn up on the free planets. There is an uneasy truce between clankers and bucketheads that is complicated by the fact that they each killed many companions on both sides. But slowly, warily, they learn to get along. A clone called Slick is discovered to have been feeding information to the pirates about the movements of the fleet. He’s imprisoned and scheduled to be tried for treason, but disappears from jail under mysterious circumstances. He’s occasionally seen in Anakin Skywalker’s crew. His betrayal leads to the freedom of many of his brothers, not their deaths, and it’s hard for Cody to condemn him as he should. It doesn’t help that he knows his General, Dooku, has some sympathies with the pirates.

Palpatine, having gone through several apprentices and killed them all for not being up to his standards, is still looking, and his eye falls on Dooku, who in another life already had devoted years to the Dark Side by this point, who always had a questioning bent, whose doubts that the Jedi are on the right side are increasing daily. Dooku had these doubts years before, and was on the verge of leaving the Jedi Order once, but in that case he was brought back. With his Padawan Qui-Gon to anchor him, with a mended relationship with his Master Yoda, with a firm friendship with Jocasta Nu, he is in a better and more secure position than he was in another story. Still, Chancellor Palpatine raises some valid points (Palpatine’s greatest gift has always been his skill at reading people and knowing which buttons to press). The Republic _is_ corrupt, the Jedi _are_ stagnating, and the Dark _is_ spreading. The Clone Rights Bill is stuck in the Senate, where is has been for the past two and a half years; the Republic is currently in an alliance _with_ the Hutts, and working _against_ the Free People; Orn Free Ta, the slaving Senator from Ryloth is still in the Senate, not as a Senator, he’s been replaced by freedom fighter Cham Syndulla, but as a representative and advisor. He is still of value to the Banking Clan, and there are many seats he can bribe himself into (and the fact that the Banking Clan has so much political power is in itself a searing indictment of the failure of democracy in the Republic). Orn Free Ta holds a high administrative post, and receives a very competitive salary paid by the Republic, since he knows people, has friends in high places, and even though his value depreciated somewhat when the slave trade on Ryloth was actually (as opposed to officially) dismantled, he still has lucrative business interests.

It makes Dooku sick, and that is what Palpatine exploits. But he can’t press too hard, can’t openly propose Dooku should support the Separatists: Palpatine is still the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, and Dooku still reports to the Jedi, but he exerts his subtle manipulations. But the war is going rather too well for the Republic for Palpatine to be entirely comfortable, and he can see the end in sight. Already there are movements calling on him to give up his emergency powers, which is the opposite of what he wants. The Delegation of 2000 which existed as a small clandestine group in another story is the Delegation of 2700 in this story, and they are canvassing support from others, allies Palpatine has up until now always been able to count on. He is in no place to proclaim himself Emperor. So he pushes Dooku a little too hard, a little too fast. Dooku is clever, he puts this together with the information the Jedi were given from that naïve Senator from Naboo about one person being behind both the Separatists and the Republic, playing both sides against each other, and comes up with the correct answer. He doesn’t know that Palpatine is a Sith, not yet. But he takes his suspicions to the Jedi, nonetheless. Dooku hasn’t been groomed since he was a child, there is no pregnant wife to hold over his head, he doesn’t fall for Palpatine’s promises of extended life. One cut with the lightsaber, and Darth Sidious is no more (Palpatine never could pick his apprentices). But Palpatine does manage to do one thing before Dooku lands the killing blow: he sends an order out across the galaxy to execute Order 66. He tells the clones to kill all the Jedi. And the clones turn on their generals and fire.

But not all. Many clones have already deserted to the Free Planets, but many more have had their chips removed, quietly, under the table, and returned to their brothers, serving in the army, not because they had to, not because they’d been ordered and delivered like a product ready to consume and discard when done with, but because they _chose_ to. They returned for their brothers, for their Generals, for the Republic that didn’t deserve their loyalty but sometimes had it all the same, and that was their _choice_. Some set their blasters to stun before they fire. Some turn their stun blasters and fire on their brothers. Some step in to shield those who they had served under, bled for, but also served _with_ and bled _with_. Good soldiers follow orders, but not when the orders are _wrong_. They have agency. They can choose which orders to follow.

Siri Tachi and her padawan Ferrus Olin, a gifted slicer, manage to get the halt order sent out. It takes them 15 endless minutes. In that time, almost a hundred Jedi lose their lives. It’s too many lives lost. It’s not the thousands of another story. The Jedi Order survives.

The just over eight hundred clones who lose their lives (either to Jedi lightsabers or their own blasters after they regain control of their thoughts and actions) are also mourned, but as an afterthought.

When the news of Palpatine’s duplicity is released to the public, the war is finally over. The Republic is destabilised, the legitimacy of the Senate is in question, there is a massive war debt, and the infrastructures and economies of the worlds where most of the fighting took place are crippled. The Separatists are facing many of the same problems, and they’re not much better off. Nobody really knows what to do, so both coalitions break up into smaller parts, slowly. There is no war against planets that want to secede, on either side, and nobody claims them for their coalitions with force. And, on a related note, there is the problem of what to do with the millions of droids and clones built and bred solely to serve as soldiers in this sham war, those who haven’t already defected to the Free Planets.

Very little of this affects the Skywalkers or the Free Planets, aside from finding places to live and work for all the incoming clones and droids. They play on a different arena: Republic or Separatist, Jedi or Sith, it matters little to them. A slaver is a slaver, no matter how they pretty it up.

With the Republic splitting up, Ani is given an official pardon by several systems that don’t practice slavery, and that means that he and Padmé can finally be open with their relationship. They marry in secret on Tatooine, with the Tatooine rituals of sharing bread, salt and water, and they whisper their vows in each other’s ears, so that nobody but they can hear them. Then they go to Shmi to get her blessing, as the matriarch of Anakin’s community. She gives it, gladly: she’s watched both Ani and Padmé grow up into caring, steadfast, honest people, driven by a passion for justice and concern for the powerless. She recites the blessing of the Mother, and then the Amavikkan celebrate with bonfires and dancing through the night. This is the first time Padmé has seen nimdara performed, and she is not certain if the dance is choreographed, or if the dancers are actually that in sync with each other. Only occasionally did slaves get these public celebrations, and they take any opportunity they have these days. Ben tells the story of Marvsta Darklighter who tricked their Depur into selling them to the Depur of their love, and so they could be together. He has little Biggs Darklighter on his hip, who may or may not be a descendant of Marvsta (Darklighter, like Whitesun and Skywalker, is one of the names slaves take when they are sold too early to remember their own name and have to name themselves). He has one arm round his sister Lynafan, who has come with Beru, Owen and Cliegg to Mos Espa from their farm. Beru is visibly pregnant (many children are born in the months and years just following the liberation of Tatooine).

They then have a ceremony on Naboo, with Padmé dressed in white, presided over by a priest from Naboo. The reception on Naboo is attended by hundreds of people: even though Naboo is a fairly unimportant Mid-Rim planet, Padmé herself is an important Senator and key to the peace talks, and Ani is also, in his own way, a Big Deal. There are several Jedi in attendance, both because Padmé Amidala is a vocal supporter of the Jedi Order, and because they are friends of the bride, but Qui-Gon Jinn attends proudly as a friend also of the groom and his family. Ben manages to avoid all but the most fleeting and polite contact with any Jedi: he is still not ready to be discovered by them. He doesn’t know if he ever will be.

It’s somewhat amusing to see the Core and Inner Rim politicians so deeply uncomfortable at being at the same event as the smugglers and pirates and freed slaves of the Outer Rim, yet trying not to show it: trying to show sensitivity yet coming off as condescending without realizing it. There’s a contrast here, between the informal celebrations in Mos Espa, the pot luck dinner followed by bonfires and dancing, and the elaborate Nubian procession and feast. They have music of complex harmonies and poetry that weaves itself around the stanzas. The flowers match Ani’s and Padmé’s clothes, and the menu has been carefully selected weeks in advance. The Amavikkan do perform one song, a fairly simple call-and-response work song in Basic, the kind that’s sung to keep several people in sync to a steady rhythm (not Amatakka, and not one that contains any kinds of incendiary message against the Hutts, nor one with secret information on the Freedom Trail – those things are still kept deeply secret. It was only after Padmé had been Anakin’s fiancée for some time that she started to learn just how many secrets the slaves kept). She’s not sure the visiting dignitaries and politicians understand the honour they’re being shown, or the importance of this event, Amavikkan culture being displayed in public, this culture that has been closely guarded since the very first slave on Tatooine.

Anakin Skywalker never Falls. Where does he have to Fall from? He’s not a Jedi, he’s not the Chosen One (or maybe he is, but Chosen by the Mother of Mothers, Chosen by the Amavikkan people, Chosen by himself). He’s not held to standards that he can’t meet, and he has a solid grasp of who and what he is. He’s a pirate, a smuggler, a freedom fighter, a leader. He’s a son, a brother, a husband, a friend. When he has troubling dreams he turns to Shmi, to Ben, to Padmé. Ani’s a true-dreamer, they know this, and they take appropriate care. His true-dreaming is treated like any other capability, the same way he and Ben can lift things at a distance, the same way Beru always knows where to find water in the desert, the same way Lynafan never loses her footing: they are all gifts from Ar-Amu, and they are all worth treasuring. Ani’s true-dreaming means they shore up defences at Haven before a clan of disgruntled Tusken attack, they mean Shmi takes care not to go out alone for some weeks, until they find he bounty hunter who is targeting her. Ani’s dreams are useful, and they take them seriously.

Ani still fears loss – he will always get attached deeply to people and cling with all his might. But he’s lost friends, brothers, sisters, in a way he won’t as a Jedi. More connections to people also mean more people who can be taken from you. Slaves have the same mourning rituals for someone who has been sold as someone who has died. Ani is no stranger to loss. He knows that even if it hurts, even if it feels as if his soul is on fire, as if the he can’t make it to the next day, he will. He can come through it on the other side, and even if he will never heal, will never be the same as he was before, he will still make it through. He has Shmi, Ben, Kitster, Amee, Melee, Slick, Beru, and everyone else in his extended family to help him through it, when the time comes. He doesn’t dream about Padmé dying. He never goes to precisely the wrong person to try and save her, he’s not groomed since childhood to not trust those closest to him.

The Tatooininans are invited to meet with the Senate on Coruscant, ostensibly to negotiate hyperlanes (again), but really so they can lay out the benefits of Republic membership (again). The Republic is desperate for new members to replace all the ones they have lost. Ben is part of the delegation, as one of the best negotiators the Tatooininans have (Shmi has elected to stay on Tatooine, her home, the place where she has spent all her life).

The Jedi, still in their role as the negotiators and diplomats of the Republic (even if that role is being increasingly questioned by the Senate and by the Jedi themselves), are there to meet Ben as he descends the ramp of the spacecraft that brought him here. It’s Ani’s ship, of course: Ani would trust nobody else to take his brother to the Core for the first time in decades. Qui-Gon and Dooku are there, to honour their previous acquaintance with Ben and the Skywalker family. Yoda is there to represent the Jedi Council. He rarely leaves the Temple, so that he has made his way all the way to the space port shows the Skywalkers a great honour. Ben isn’t supposed to know exactly how much of an honour it is that Yoda would leave the Temple for them, but he does.

They exchange pleasantries, and Ben thinks he manages to hide his nerves. At least well enough that Ani doesn’t feel pressured to step in, which is reassuring. He’d never hear the end of it if he had to be saved by his little brother on a diplomatic mission. Ani makes a point not to call any of the Jedi ‘Master’. If they’re bothered by it, they don’t let on. Ben keeps his face pleasant, the small-talk light, even as his instincts are screaming at him to watch out, to get out of there now.

When the dart comes flying out of nowhere, he’s prepared. He dodges. When the red lightsaber ignites behind him, he already has his blaster out. He doesn’t recognise the being wielding it – a human male, young-ish. Sidious never did follow the Rule of Two – he always had backup plans to his backup plans, including ones factoring in the event of his death. The man is hopelessly outclassed against three Jedi Masters and half a dozen pirates. He still manages to slice Qui-Gon’s hand off. It lands on the ground with a metallic clang, and his lightsaber falls out of his hands. It lands by Ben’s feet, almost like a sign. Ben hasn’t dedicated his life to listening to the Force (he’s had other concerns in this life), but he can still recognise when it’s screaming at him. He hasn’t held a lightsaber in almost three decades, but it fits in his hand as if it was made for him. His body falls automatically back into the stances he worked so hard on when he was an initiate. He borrows most heavily from Ataru, the form he is most familiar with, but it’s been changed from years of non-standard katas, from sparring with Ani on the loose sand dunes on Tatooine, from learning nimdara, from calling on the Force in new ways not taught to the Jedi initiates, but discovered on his own trough experimentation. It both is and isn’t anything like messing about with sticks and table legs and droid parts with Ani. The lightsaber has its own echo, responds to what he wants it to do almost before he knows it himself. The Force hums with every swing, and he thinks _yes_. _Yes._ This is what he was meant to do. This is who he was meant to be. He makes it look effortless, and Qui-Gon can only look on as the young man he dismissed as a slightly Force-sensitive unassuming slave on a backwater planet holds off the Sith apprentice as if he were born to it. His fighting is unorthodox, but he clearly has some Jedi training, and Qui-Gon wonders where in the world he picked it up. Who would teach a slave Jedi katas? Ben manages to work with both Yoda and Dooku, and lines the Sith up so Dooku can strike the finishing blow. In this story, Dooku has killed more Sith than any other Jedi. Qui-Gon will never dare voice his theory that Dooku is so intent on killing Sith as a way to combat the darkness that he himself has wrestled with: Qui-Gon isn’t even supposed to know that Dooku has had those troubles.

Ben hands Qui-Gon’s saber back with an almost Jedi-like bow.

“My apologies for the presumption,” he says, “and my thanks for the loan. Are you well?”

Qui-Gon takes the proffered hand and stands up.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Nothing damaged but my pride.”

“And your hand,” Ben points out. Ani’s poking at it, trying to see what upgrades have been made since the last time he saw it, and Ben inwardly cringes at the rudeness.

“It can be replaced. But I should be thanking you; you saved my life. I didn’t know you knew the art of the lightsaber?”

Ben waves the apology away.

“You Jedi would have managed just fine without me.”

Yoda, who up until now has remained silent, speaks up.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he says, leaning his chin on his walking stick. “Thought you dead, we did. In hiding, you have been.”

Ben stills. Ani, intimately attuned to his brother’s moods, drops Qui-Gon’s hand and puts his hand back on his blaster, even though this threat is not one they can shoot themselves out of. Ani’s always been more eager to fight his way out than Ben: his adventures in piracy have only made him more so. If in doubt, shoot something. Most of the time, it works, but the other times, it really, _really_ doesn’t.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Ben says thoughtfully, to buy himself some time. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. Most know me as Ben Skywalker. And other than preferring a different name, I haven’t been hiding. You haven’t been looking, Jedi Master Yoda.”

It comes out as slightly more aggressive and bitter than he intends it to, and he can feel Ani’s hand reach out and take his arm. It’s reassuringly warm through the thin cloth. He doesn’t make any outward sign that he notices, but he knows Ani can tell how grateful he is.

“Disclose your identity, you did not,” Yoda hrmphs. “Though known Qui-Gon for many years, you have.”

Ben nods once, conceding the point.

“True. But I doubt this is a discussion either of us wants to have so openly.”

The silence hangs heavy between them on the way back to the Jedi Temple. In the Temple, Ben points out many of his childhood haunts to Ani, who listens with interest, and tries to imagine himself and Ben among the serene halls of the Jedi. He doesn’t have much success – Ben seems like so much _more_ than would fit in here. True, he has himself under tight control, keeps his thoughts to himself and can convince anyone of anything, but he is also a thrill-seeker, just like Ani himself, makes reckless plans and when he succeeds through luck calls it skill, and will happily ditch his principles by the wayside if it will help him achieve a larger goal. Ben would be smothered by the Jedi Order. Ani also tries to see himself here, and has even worse success. Ani is not a Jedi. Ani is a storm, he is Ekkreth. He prefers a blaster over any other weapon, and his main go-to solution to problems is to shoot at them. From what he knows of the Jedi, he can see a fairly obvious culture clash there, and that’s just the start. Ani may have idealised the Jedi as a child, but that has firmly passed, and he is more grateful than he can express that his mother and brother did not let Qui-Gon take him away from his family as a child.

Qui-Gon can hardly believe what he is hearing. Obi-Wan Kenobi, the boy who was almost his apprentice, the boy he rejected, and who died so soon afterwards, is standing in front of him, alive and well. Has, in fact, been alive and well (for given values of “well”) for all this time, and Qui-Gon knew him without ever knowing. How did he not recognise the boy?

“It’s my fault,” he says, as soon as they reach a somewhat secluded room to speak in. “I’m truly sorry I didn’t recognise you, and I hold myself to blame, for all of it. I’ve known you for so many years, counted you as a friend, and yet I had no idea of your true identity. I should have recognised you on Tatooine. I should have rescued you. If only you’d said something, of course I’d brought you back to the temple and taken you on as my own apprentice. You and your brother, we would have made space for both of you.”

He looks to Yoda and Dooku as if daring them to disagree. They don’t.

Ben sighs, and then figures he might as well say what he has been thinking. It’ll take up everyone’s thoughts until it’s dealt with. He takes a deep breath, drawing strength from his brother beside him.

“That’s precisely why I didn’t say anything. You would have taken me, but you wouldn’t have done anything for the rest of the slaves. You would have rescued Obi-Wan Kenobi, but you weren’t willing to rescue Ben Skywalker, and by that point, I’d been Ben Skywalker for over half my life. I didn’t know how not to be. Why did Obi-Wan Kenobi deserve to be rescued, but not Ben Skywalker? And truthfully, I couldn’t bear it if you brought me back to the Council Chamber and said I was still too old and too angry. I’d already been rejected once, and I had no reason to think you wouldn’t reject me again. I know myself – I _am_ everything you accused me of: impulsive, angry, attached. If anything, my years on Tatooine made me more so, not less. And you were so obviously interested in Ani, who was even more impulsive, angry and attached than I was at his age. What would his future be, if you brought him back and rejected him like you had me? Or what if you’d taken him? Taken him, and taught him Jedi calm, taught him to let go of his attachments, made him turn away from his native culture. You take younglings so early most of them don’t have time to absorb an identity, but for Ani – you don’t know how deep the slave culture goes, you would have had him give up everything he was, get rid of his entire identity to fit in, and you would have smothered him. So I hid my past, and let you think I was nothing more than a slave with some sensitivity to the Force. I discouraged your interest in Ani, because I couldn’t risk myself, or him. I weighed the benefits of freedom against the cost of our identity, our dream of freeing every slave on Tatooine, and decided it wasn’t worth it.”

It goes against everything he is, to lay himself bare like this: Ben’s every instinct is to guard himself closely, not to let on what he knows or feels. Only Ani knows what this outburst cost him. The Jedi say nothing for a while, if the face of Ben’s rather extended grievances.

“I am truly sorry for what we did to you, for our blindness,” Qui-Gon says at last.

“Change, there will be,” Yoda agrees.

Ben shrugs.

“I won’t say things turned out for best, because truthfully things were pretty terrible for a long time, but I did a lot of good, probably more than I would have as Jedi. We eliminated slavery, and I was part of it, when you were complicit.”

They haven’t forgiven the Republic or the Jedi for the way they used the clones during the wars, and most likely they will always carry a grudge. The clones say the Jedi were doing the best of a bad situation, which if they’re honest is the only reason they’ll deal with them at all. Ben is firmly disillusioned with the Jedi Order. He tells the Jedi that he’s happy where he is, doing what was meant to be doing. He doesn’t carry a grudge, but also doesn’t absolve Jedi Order for what they did to him and other initiates who were deemed too old or unsuitable in other ways.

They meet with some of Ben’s childhood friends: it’s every bit as awkward as Ben always imagined it would be, after the joyful revelation that he was alive. Their lives have simply diverged too much, they have too little in common. But when Ben goes home, he has their contact details, and they start up a correspondence that slowly bridges the distance between them and they start to relearn each other as adults.

The Jedi Order starts to work on reforming the way they treat younglings, starting with the routines for younglings who are not chosen as Padawans, spearheaded by Qui-Gon and Yoda (which surprises many people, as Yoda has always been a traditionalist), but the Jedi Order has always been slow and resistant to reform. The work Qui-Gon and Yoda are starting will be the work of several generations. But in time, even the Jedi Order will find its way again.

Ben goes home, which in this story is not the Jedi Temple, but a small house in what used to be the slave quarters of Mos Espa. He belongs on Tatooine, with his mother and his many brothers and sisters. Ani’s children, Luke and Leia, twins, are born free to a Tatooine with no slaves. Beru and Owen have their second child soon after, and Kitster and Wald adopt several orphans – even though slavery is ended, there are still many children who don’t know who or where their parents are.

Ani settles down on Naboo with Padmé, who has a role as an advisor to the Queen after she steps down from the Senate. Melee takes over the running of the ship, bringing up her son Biggs as she takes over the captain’s role. Her ship is by now mostly reputable, and they do mainly legal work. They take on passengers and somehow pick up a reputation as a reliable spice freighter, of all things. But they still do some smuggling, and they will never stop seeking out people in need of help. Luke, Leia and Biggs travel all over the galaxy, picking up a mish-mash of languages. Amatakka and Basic are their first languages, Twi’leki, Bocce, Huttese, Mando’a and Shyriiwook come soon after. After finally off-loading most of the administration of Tatooine onto others, Ben joins the crew occasionally for the odd job.

Luke, Leia and Biggs grow up as siblings. They grow up surrounded by a large family of cousins, sisters, brothers, siblings, and friends. They spend most of their time on on Naboo or on Melee’s ship. They look forward to the times when they set down on Tatooine, especially Luke who gets on the best with Owen and Beru’s children: Luke, who in another life couldn’t wait to escape.

This is a new story: it’s a story about a young boy who finds a home and a family in dark circumstances, about a man who swears to never again call anyone Master and keeps his promise, about a woman who lives long enough to hold her grandchildren. It’s a story about people claiming their freedom, about the light found in dark places, and about bonds that last through hardship and distance. It’s a story of pain, but also of love, and on the whole, it’s a good one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Don't forget to check out Paynesgrey's amazing art: <https://paynesgrey-art.dreamwidth.org/7049.html>

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art: The Sons of Tatooine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15510039) by [paynesgrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paynesgrey/pseuds/paynesgrey)




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